we still do!

Growing up in a city where everybody knew everybody, we always knew each other in passing but never actually spoke to each other. We met through Josh's cousin and my childhood best friend, Maddie, at a haunted house in Auburn, Illinois. I ended up being forced to go through the haunted house with Josh but, I couldn't complain- I secretly had a crush on him and was all butterflies and smiles when he grabbed my hand and held it through the whole haunted house.. and then dropped it the moment we stepped outside and, acted like nothing happened. He asked me to be his girlfriend on December 25, 2010, with a giant heart shaped cookie cake and from that moment, I knew he was the one.

At the beginning of his senior year, Josh decided to join the military. We talked a lot about a long- distance relationship while he traveled the world and I finished school, and then getting married later down the road. It seemed a lot less complicated until the day we dropped him off for basic training. And again before technical training. And 2 more times before his first duty station. At that point, we knew we wanted to be together. At 18 years old, we called the court house and asked when the next available date was.. "February 3rd at 1130" You mean 3 days from now? ..Okay... we can do that. Bypassing everyones judgement, we went on to get married and here we are- happy and more in love than ever before!

At 18 years old, our first house, first set of bills and 1,490 miles away from home, we had no clue what life had in store for us. We never got the opportunity to plan our wedding the way we wanted to. Being in the military, you can never expect anything to go as planned. 5 years, 2 puppies, 3 homes and 17 states later.. We want to do it all over again! We have decided to take it back to our hometown, during our favorite month around the time we first met, 9 years ago! We want to share our love, growth and happiness with ya'll as we exchange our own vows to one another for our late 5 year anniversary!