10 years in the making!

We met on a layover in Wichita, KS. At the pool. Kevin and the Captain he was working with were there on a 30 hour layover. On their day 2, my crew landed about noon or so; they were flying us out the following morning. I received a phone call in my room from Kevin inviting me down to the pool to hang with them...so I went. Kevin was the guy with beers on ice in his hotel room trash can. After a few, they invited me out to dinner/drinks with them and we went to a place called Emerson Biggings. It was a dive sports bar and Kevin and I played pool. I think I beat him. That place led to another bar where we started to hit it off, even thought he drove me crazy! Hoping the night would not ever end, we got our wish when we received a phone call from our schedulers saying our flight was cancelled the next day. We had until 1:00pm. Kevin and I stayed out for a long time and walked each other back to the hotel with a little stumble, a lot of stumble. We parted ways (in the early AM ;-)) and I figured I would never see him again, even though there was an obvious connection. We happened to run into each other in Denver AND fly together again just a week later. From that moment on, I never went more than a few days without talking to him, and knew I could never live without him.

The very first time I came to Austin to hang with Kevin, he wanted to take me out on a date and show me the city. We went downtown and hit a wine bar then started walking around before our planned dinner. There was live music, which Kevin loves, playing in a bar called Chuggin’ Monkeys so we went in. This is a bar on 6th street in Austin and the upstairs has very low ceilings. We were dancing up there to the music and Kevin decided to start twirling me, which he loves to do. On one crazy twirl, he lifted me up by my hips and BAM! my head hit the roof. It really frickin' hurt so I grabbed my forehead and immediately bent over in pain. When Kevin removed my hand, he saw skull. Busted my forehead clean open. Off we went to the ER and spent the next few hours waiting for me to get 7 stitches in my head. After the hospital, we went back to the bar and I got a t-shirt! That's why the picture on the wedding info page is so special.

You might have noticed that our wedding invites were not on fancy pants stationary, but on plain jane Marriott hotel notepads. Kevin and I have always used these to write each other love notes our whole relationship. As a matter of fact, the night he proposed, he had kept every single one I have even given him over the course of 10 years and taped them up all over our house, along with pictures of us EVERYWHERE. So romantic and perfect.

So when I met Kevin I was a big fan of the show ‘Sex and the City.” There is an episode of that show where the main character, Carrie, sees a pair of gorgeous pink shoes in the window of a department store. She says “Hello Loveah.” And so I started calling Kevin my Loveah. And it stuck. Our initials KLH & MLL were ways that we sign our love notes. We used to both fly out of Chicago airport and our offices were right next to each other. We would always leave notes on scrap paper in each other’s mailbox and sign it that way so that if someone else saw it, they wouldn’t know who it was from. 😘

If you’re wondering who will be marrying us, the obvious answer is Kevin’s Dad Ronnie. He has been a pastor for many years now, and we would want no one else up there with us, making it official. I lost both of my Dads in the last few years, so he is making it more special for me because of that.

Kevin and I have a TON of music that reminds us of each other. We have music on all the time, sometimes to the annoyance of Ben & Luke. We never worry about what’s on trend, if we like it we listen to it. You will be hearing a lot of tunes you might not recognize because we want to play sentimental songs. And don’t expect any hokey-pokey or electric slide. I HATE those songs.

Growing up, Kevin’s family had a cabin on Lake Travis. He went there all the time to camp and fish. He has amazing memories from those times and a deep love of the lake because of it. Kevin’s dream in life has always been to live on the lake, so we figured getting married on it makes perfect sense. We are lucky to have friends like Eddie & Sara, who are generous enough to let us use it for this occasion.