A little history on us..

I figure it's only proper to start out a blog with a little background, especially since we are over 8-1/2 years into our marriage at this point!  I know I won't be able to go back and recap all the wonderful memories we've made over the past 8-1/2 years (although from time to time I am sure you'll get to read a 'throw back' post), so I figure I can give you as condensed version of the history of Ben and Lessa as I can.  Disclaimer:  THIS COULD GET A LITTLE LENGTHY!  :o)
Ben and I first met the summer of 1996.  I walked down the hill to my cousin Luke's house to go swimming.  He had a friend over and they were already in the pool.  I don't remember much about that first meeting except that I wore a tweety bird one piece swimsuit.  Cut me some slack, I was 12.  Ben can tell you all about the second time we met.  It was the next summer, 1997, at our church's Junior High summer camp.  He still tells me to this day how the first thing he noticed on my was my legs.  I guess I didn't get the memo to wear longer shorts to church camp.  Oops.  We became 'boyfriend and girlfriend' that summer via phone, with Luke as the moderator.  It was pretty cute, looking back on it.  We were a summer couple and broke up before school started back.  The next 3 years we remained close friends, and dated some.  Ben even took me out my first official date (insert 'awww' here).  The summer of 2000, we began to date again.  On July 30 of that year we were sitting in my driveway listening to the sounds of a summer night, and Creed's With Arms Wide Open, when Ben asked me to be his girlfriend.  That was right before my junior year and his senior year.  We have been together since!  He asked me to marry him on July 6, 2002.  His proposal still takes the cake for originality in my book (he had a slide of pictures of us displayed on the big screen at our local theater before a movie was supposed to start - took me totally by surprise, and was the sweetest thing EVER!).



Picture of the slide that was on the big screen :)

 We got married on June 14, 2003 in the back courtyard of an antebellum home in downtown Jackson.  Our ceremony was short and sweet since it decided to rain that afternoon, but it was everything I could have dreamed of (complete with a ceremony under a live oak-under a black and white golf umbrella to keep the rain off of us, and a horse drawn carriage ride). 



Our wedding day - June 14, 2003


Since our wedding, we have lived in a townhouse apartment, a duplex close to where I attended college, and finally our first little house in a quiet lake community.  I finished college with a degree in Interior Design (minor in German).  Ben graduated XRay school as a registered Radiologic Technologist, then went on to get certified in CT scans.  We both no longer work in those fields, but are very happy with our current careers.  
After being married this long, one would think that things sort of settle into a routine and I think to an extent they do.  But the past two years, I truly believe that God has begun to work diligently on us, working to show us His path and plan for our family and our future.  I feel that every day.  I am grateful that He chose us to be together, and that He chose us to walk a path that hasn't always been easy.  We are on a new path now.  And while the first part of our marriage was a starting point of our journey, I marvel and how incredible it is to have the opportunity to create a new path from here.  This is the beginning of our journey as a family of 3!

Cades Cove, TN - October 2011 (I was just over 10 weeks pregnant)

- Lessa