We're Goin' to the Chapel...

We met in Paleontology lab as Dr. Rischbieter can confirm. My ring tone was Lord of the Rings themed, and a simple phone call was enough to start a conversation since we both share an interest in LOTR. We did not, as you might assume, swoon over one another as we studied fossils. Instead, we did the obvious thing and dated each other's friends. We became good friends during class, a trip to the Galapagos, and later when we reconnected after we had both graduated from Presbyterian College. Even then, our relationship was just friendship, but it was good. It was so good, in fact, we were nervous to date. We had both experienced our fair share of breakups and we knew that it was a risk to date. On a hike on Swamp Rabbit Trail, we agreed to stay friends and shook on it. Jump to a few months later and I am standing knee-deep in a river digging up dirt for an experiment with freshwater mussels when God took me by the shoulders, shook me, and helped me to see that Nathaniel was a gift that I was ignoring. It was in waders and a bucket hat somewhere in northwest Georgia that I knew Nathaniel and I would get married one day.