Flashback: The Start of Us

So if you read my post last Friday, you learned that Josh, my wonderful boyfriend, and I will be celebrating 4 happy years together later this month. I posted a few pictures of us together and posed the question for you to e-mail me with where you thought we met. Several of you responded and guessed college, a bar, and a basketball game. Well, none of those are even close so I thought today I would do a little flashback and tell you all the story of how we started dating...apologizes ahead of time for the possibly long and cheesy post! 


Flashback to the 60s/70s
Our parents grew up in the same community and went to the same high school. My aunt became high school best friend's with Josh's mom and still to this day do almost everything together.

Flashback to Easter 1994
When my parents got married in the 80s, they were the only siblings in both of their families to move away from their hometown. I grew up 2 hours northwest of my entire family and well Josh as well. Growing up, my parents and I would always drive down to my Grandparents church for any holidays and I would go into my Grandma's Sunday school class. Josh and his family attended the same church as my Grandparents and Josh was in my Grandma's Sunday school class. Well on Easter 1994 she captured a picture that she later gave to Josh and I; it is of us in her same Sunday school classroom. I guess you can say this is the first time we officially met!

Flashback to the late 90s-2000s 
Josh attended elementary through high school with all of my cousins and they all grew up together. He continued to attend my grandparents churn and my aunt always loved Josh and his younger brother. In high school, my aunt would always mention how she wanted me to meet this really great young man named Josh because he was perfect for me but of course growing up two hours apart from one another I thought it would be weird to have a long distance boyfriend in high school...so we never met.

October 2009
It was our freshman year of college. I attend UNC Charlotte and Josh attended UNC Chapel Hill. Our two schools were 3.5 hours apart and our paths had still not crossed. It was October 8, 2009 when I got the phone call that shook my world. I was getting ready to go to my first midterm as a college student when my aunt called to tell me she couldn't get ahold of my mom but Grandpa was being rushed to the hospital for having a heart attack. Little did I know at this point that my Grandpa had already passed away but my family didn't want me to be upset while making the four hour drive to where my family was. I quickly emailed my professors and rushed to Fayetteville, NC. When I met my family at the house I was told the news that I would never get to say goodbye to the one person who meant the world to me. 

Two days later the family was at the funeral home for my grandpa's visitation and that ladies and gentlemen is where I met Josh. Yep, you read that right. I met Josh at my grandpa's funeral visitation...I bet y'all never would have guessed that one! Shortly after the passing of my grandpa, Josh and I became friends on the big world of Facebook and started to message each other every few days. We finally exchanged numbers towards the beginning of November and on November 6th I went to UNC Chapel Hill to see my best friend in a play. I somehow remembered I had Josh's number and thought to text him. He agreed to meet me and my mom for dinner at [B]Ski's on Franklin Street and the rest is history. 

It took a few days for us both to get up the courage to tell one another we liked the other but I then began making weekly trips to good ole Chapel Hill since Josh didn't have his car freshman year. Right before Thanksgiving break we were on a little date night walking around campus. When we got to the intramural fields we stopped to look at the starts and then Josh asked if he could call me his girlfriend...the rest has been nothing but memories! 

So come November 21st we will have been together 4 years! And yes, if you've put two and two together we have dated long distance the entire four years...including SUPER long distance as I've been traveling the country this year! Josh graduated this past May and is now in his first year of grad school at Wake Forest University! Now that you've learned a little about "us" I'll share some pictures with you that way you don't have to keep reading words! Enjoy :-)