4 years.

Today is 4 years of dating for Reed and I. 

Isn't it strange how I've been counting down the days until I'm married when really the exciting part is that I get to keep counting up the years, months, weeks, and days that I am with Reed FOREVER! 

I hope that I don't stop counting days after August 4th. 

I want to always be excited about being with Reed. 

So, in honor of being together 4 years I thought I would be sappy again :)

But this time I'm gonna give some history. You are about to know me and Reed on a whole new level!!

Lets start with how we met. Well. I can't because I don't remember how we met. 

I have known Reed and his family for as long as I can remember. 

My dad and Reeds dad are best friends. 

That lead to my older brother JB becoming best friends with Reed and his older brother Ross. 

Those boys were basically inseparable. 

From left to right: Reed, JB, Ross

Growing up with these boys was fun. I really got to know there family and we basically lived at each others houses. Because Reeds younger sister Mika wasn't adopted until later down the road I was the little girl in their family for a while. Reeds mom would braid my hair and was always so good at taking care of me and my siblings. She even taught me how to swallow pills. 

So, being so close for such a long time I obviously was ignored by the boys and I'm sure I totally filled the role of annoying younger sister. 

Butttttt that didn't keep me from having an "older crush". In  middle school my best friend and I both had older crushes with code names. I was really creative and my code name was Deer. 

Isn't that so good!

So basically all of middle school I thought Reed was so cool and all my friends were jealous that he would come up and give me hugs at church. 

When Reed and his family decided to become missionaries in Nicaragua I was devastated. I did not want them to go one bit. But thanks to technology Reed and I stayed in touch via AIM. (just a FYI I was gigglebox and he was luvbigbugs, fitting right).
I remember one specific conversation like it just happened. They were living in Costa Rica for training and Reed was dating a girl who was also their with her family for training. I was sad thinking my day would never come and that was (at the time) made certain by the advice Reed gave me. He was telling me about this girl and how he was going to marry her. He was so excited that he found the one! I of course did the typical girl thing and played the card that I would never have a boyfriend. He just told me to wait and never compromise. He then told me the biggest piece of advice ever. He said I quote

"never kiss a boy". 

So I didn't. 

Lets fast forward to my Junior year of high school. Reed had moved back to the states a year or two earlier to go to college while his parents stayed in Nicaragua. I had seen him off and on, mainly at church but never actually hung out together. One day he came over to the house for something and my mom was being a typical mom telling Reed I always brought home boys that wear penny loafers. 

Reeds come back to that was. "I don't have a girlfriend! I did but I don't anymore!". 

Talk about awkward. 

Then he wanted to see all of my art projects and leaned in real close to get a good look at each one. I was so confused. I thought it was so strange and just flat out bizarre. He kept coming around and just hanging out with the family. And I finally asked him to come to the river with my friends and I. In highschool we would raft down the river in down town Columbia and it was so much fun! 

So, I asked Reed to join us. He must of thought it was a date because he packed a cooler, chairs, and fishing poles. I was so confused that I asked a friend to stay with me on the rocks so that it wasn't awkward.

Reed and I talked a lot, obviously he was totally digging me. If you notice he isn't fishing! He has the pole in his hands but he chose to sit and chat with me instead!! Thats a big deal :)

But after that initial hang out he came over ALL THE TIME! 

I had a student government banquet the last week of school and Reed was over at the house when my mom and I were leaving, he asked to come with us. I didn't understand why he would want to torture himself by sitting through this but he did. We were all 3 going to go out to eat after but mom conveniently  felt sick. So just Reed and I  went out. We made it to O'Charleys and stayed until it closed. Literally. Reed asked for a refill on tea and the girl was like "we just poured it out cause we are closing". Yep we lost complete track of time just sitting and talking, mainly about Nicaragua. 

Reed and I could talk for hours. He came over every night for about 2 weeks to eat dinner with the family and sit and talk until the early hours of the morning. 

At the end of those 2 weeks I was leaving to go live with his parents in Nicaragua for about a month. I was so ready to go and be back in the country I love but it was weird knowing that I wouldn't see Reed. We hadn't made it official or even mentioned what was going on at all so I had no idea what I was going to come back to. 

After being in Nicaragua for about a week and a half Reeds mom went out with another one of the interns and came back to the house with Reed! When he walked around the corner I had no idea how to react. I was confused, how in the world did he fly all the way to Nicaragua with out me knowing! 

Obviously he was there to see his family but also made it a big surprise to come visit while I was there. 

It was amazing we got to spend so much time together in a country that both of our hearts had been broken for. We grew unbelievably close with each other and with the Lord. 

Every night before we went to sleep Carrie,Meredith, Kendal, (two of my best friends who where there with me for the month) Reed and I would do a little devotion together. It was always so interesting to have Reed in on our time with the Lord. All of us really poured out our hearts and became unbelievably close those 4 weeks. 

All 5 of us during one of our devotionals!

About the second week Reed was there he decided to make it official. It was one of our off days so we were cleaning and organizing around the house. Because of all of the interns staying in house Reed was forced to sleep on the floor of one of the large storage closets (don't worry he had a mattress and everything). Apparently he thought this was the only place we could have a second alone, so he asked if we could talk in the closet. He began to tell me that he really liked me and that he wanted to make sure that I knew this wasn't a joke to him. That him pursuing me was something he really wanted to do long term. He also told me that he would be heading to Clemson in a year and if I didn't want to do long distance than we didn't really need to start anything. I just assured him that it was ok because in that same year I would be heading off to college and I wasn't really sure where. 

So we started dating in a storage closet :) 

Don't worry he made up for it on our first kiss. 

About to go on the hike! 

I was stingy I had kept his advice for so many years. I had not once been kissed and I was beginning my senior year of high school that year!! I made sure to just avoid any circumstance that could possibly allow kissing. Reed was tired of asking and me saying no so he took it upon himself to take me on a date. Still being in Nicaragua it kinda limited our ability to go out. Reed planned a day trip to the National park that is near his parents farm. We had his mom drop us off and began to hike towards the waterfall. On our way we saw monkeys that stopped and talked to Reed. (It was hilarious)

By the time we got to the waterfall it began to rain. We huddled together under a huge banana tree leaf to keep from getting soaked. I was still not wanting to kiss him so I didn't face him this entire time. Finally he had enough of it and turned me around and planted one right on the lips! 

I used the story of our first kiss as a project in my basics art class last year.
That is a monkey with a waterfall and banana trees behind him. And pineapples all along the bottom.

I would say that he totally made up for asking me out in a storage closet by kissing me in the rain by a water fall :)

So, basically that is our story. We have been together for 4 years now, but it seems like forever. 

Luckily we have promised each other for ever and it is just a few short weeks until that comes true!!