Summer Marriage Challenge - week 2

Warning: LONG Story.
We met in high school and I was 2 years older but our crowds interacted (small town). I briefly dated his best friend...funny story how that came about:
I was painting faces at a basketball game and a friend of his (girl) wanted to get us together but he wouldn't come down and get his face painted (sooo Bryce, btw) BUT his bf did that's how we came about. Okay, not lol funny but funny looking back, especially considering they are still friends!

But fate didn't give up on us...
My first close interaction with him was (1992) in the counselor's office...We had been selected as "Students of the Month" for September and she needed to interview us for the paper.
I can't quiet put my first impression down in words, even all these years later...I guess I thought he was odd, but beautiful...definitely beautiful. Not that it mattered because I had a boyfriend anyway...

Fast forward to FCA Game Day on October 31st where we talked on the bus the whole way home! Actually my friend (who I was with) liked him, and I had just started seeing someone...who I think was a bit peeved, because we were trying to make plans to all go to a haunted house that night and he (I found out later) lied and said Bryce couldn't go, LOL. Despite that, we had our first date 2 weeks later. And by our 2nd, I was head over heels!

We dated for the next almost 2 years before we broke up. Bryce was still in high school doing his thing and I wanted to be serious so it wasn't working. I dated other people, but make no mistake, I was heartbroken. Then one night, around graduation, he told a mutual friend to have me to call him. After a few hours of debate (after all, we had an ugly break-up and I wasn't sure I wanted to go down that road again) I followed me heart & called.

Of course we got back together and I wasn't sure what would happen when he left for college, so I prepared for the worst (putting my guard up)...but we figured it out and by that Spring had grown closer than ever (that's when the above picture was taken, I think before a concert?).
We stayed together until he graduated college then had another break up, followed by a lot of forgiveness & make-up a couple weeks later and our engagement on July 11, 1999.

That's our dating story, the long road to how we came to be :)

I was thrilled to be engaged to him, to become a part of his wonderful family & have his babies!
Had we not ended up together, I would've forever had a hole in my heart.
He is the love of my life.

We FINALLY married September 3, 2001...and that's a whole 'nother story.