We met at the Lexington branch of the Mansfield/Richland County Public Library. Lucas was volunteering the shift before me. I got to the library early to visit with Karla (Maid of Honor), whose shift overlapped with his. Lucas and I became fast friends. According to the my mom, when asked how my first shift of the summer went, I replied with, "well, there was the boy there, and I think he likes me!" Needless to say, we were both smitten from the very beginning.

Lucas didn't have a cell phone when we first met, so when I gave him my phone number, he wrote it across the palm of his hand and memorized it before it was washed off. I distinctly remember the librarian asking him if he was "collecting phone numbers now," when she saw my number on his hand. He IM'd me to ask me out, and I was giddy. The night before our first date, I had a marching band "lock-in" overnight and didn't get home until 7am the day of our date. Our first date was at 2:30pm on August 1st, and I picked Lucas up from the library. We went to Kelly's for mini-golf and ice cream. Not wanting the date to end, we went to the park to swing and to JB's because he had never had a slushie before, and I insisted he had to try the blue raspberry flavor. Almost 5 hours later, and after a wonderful day, I was finally home and so exhausted that I fell asleep on the couch. It was both of our first dates!

We were at my parent's house and there was snow on the ground. My mom and Lucas tricked me into helping him carry something out to the barn in the backyard, and they turned on all of the white Christmas lights that line the backyard. He pulled me aside as we approached the house, and told me he needed to talk to me about something. He, then, got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. It was beautiful and perfect in every way.