The Story of *Us*

Shawn & I have been dating for over seven years now. We met and became friends when we were the wee ages of 16 & 17. At first we were just friends and became very close and hung out with the same people. Our first round of dating ended soon because we decided against it. On June 16, 2001 we decided to give it a second go round. Our senior year of high school was awesome but then came college for both of us. I had my heart set on going to Canisius College in Buffalo, N.Y. and he was going back to the south, Midlands Technical School and then the University of South Carolina in Columbia, South Carolina. This meant FOUR years of a major long distance relationships. Many people voted against us thinking that it could not possibly work out. We were too young to even understand what this thing called love was. YES I would be crazy to not admit that we definitely had our fair trials of test & failure... A couple breaks here and there but honestly it made us the strongest people/couple that we are today. After that four years I took the plunge and moved to South Carolina and left all the securities that I had surrounded myself with for 22 years. Of course I miss my family and all of my friends everyday BUT I have made new friends and have a secon family down here!! And obviously being with Shawn & Ziggy day in and day out is pretty amazing too.. (Ziggy is our two year old cat who thinks he is a dog) So after living together for two years and passing the tests of "dealing" with each other we took a trip to Savannah, Georgia for Shawn's 25th birthday to get away from "home"... On that day we were discovering Savannah and having one of the best vacations we have been on... At the last fountain Shawn asked me to spend the rest of our lives together so that I could celebrate his birthday with him every year... So when everyone says well "it's about time", I wouldn't agree I would say this is "our time", yes seven almost eight years is a long time but we progressed through our relationship at our own rate and I could never imagine skipping any of those major milestones in our relationship. We took it in strides and not leaps and would not be here in the 10 months before our wedding if we had done it any other way...