Happy Birthday to Kristen

Today, March 8th, is my wife's birthday. No words can describe how wonderful of a woman she is. She stands beside me, despite my sarcasm, my evil looks I give to waitresses who don't refill my drinks, and the fact that I hate making the bed.

My wife and I met at FHU when I was a senior. It was my 5th year, and we started "dating". We didn't really date that much, because we bonded as such good friends. In fact, my old roommate Kevin Westmoreland wanted to date her. He would come back talking about how cool she was before I ever met her. When I finally met her, I knew there was something extremely special about her, and if you've ever met her, you would agree.

The most special night we ever had while we were still at Freed was a night we went to the now torn down Milan Sitka building. It was a really old building at Freed, and they had some staircases outside the building. I took her over there, and took my guitar with me and some paper. I told her that we were going to write a song together. I was going to write one line, and then she would write the next line, and so on. We called it "Moral of the Story". I knew that night, as we wrote that song together, and the words fit together so perfectly, that we too could fit perfectly together.

I didn't ask her to marry me until about 2 years later. In fact we stopped dating completely. I moved to Houston after graduation. I told her that I had to focus on graduating (since I had been there 5 years already). We never got back together. Sure, we played Volleyball together, and we hung out every now and then...but I didn't get a chance to date her again until....

When the movie Spiderman came out, I went to see while I was in Houston. Kirsten Dunst, the girl who played Mary Jane was in that movie. All night long, I saw Kristen's face instead of Kirsten's. I couldn't stop thinking about her. When I got home that night, I sent Kristen an email out of nowhere, just telling her that I missed her, and I was thinking of her. A few weeks later, I was visiting Kevin at Freed, and Kristen was there as well. We got to hang out some, and she realized that I had grown up quite a bit from my college days. (Long story, not enough time in the world to discuss it!)

Bottom line, we dated over the phone basically for about a year. On Christmas Eve of 2002 I proposed to her (another Long story), and she said yes. My life has been so much better with her. In fact I can't remember life without her.

I love my wife more than anything else on this world. She is a friend, a support, a fellow youth minister, and more than that, she is a Christian and shares my love and faith in God.

I love you Kristen.