Five years ago today I started going out with my amazing boyfriend Walter. We celebrated on Friday and he took me on the most incredible surprise date EVER. I wish I had pictures of the amazing roses he gave me or a cute new picture of the two of us, but unfortunately since my computer is broken I don’t! But, you can see lots of pictures from his blog post: http://walterburks.com/?p=339 along with a recording he made of the song “Then” and gave to me.

Since he gave the story of the date, I want to give the story behind the date…

We met in 2001, I came to visit Parkwood Baptist Church, and I walked into his Sunday school class. He was shy and didn’t talk much, so we didn’t really know each other well for a while. (This is the first place we went on the date.) His family moved to Hartlepool, England for 6 months in 2002, however. While he was over there, my mother pushed me to get his AIM screen name and talk to him, because she said he was probably missing his friends. I didn’t want to because I argued that he wouldn’t know who I was, and he was a dork with a comb-over that never talked. (Sorry Walter hehe) I finally did get his screen name and we started talking all the time. By the time he got back from England we were pretty much best friends. In 2003, not long after he got back from England, our church went to Celebration Station (now Zuma Family Fun Center). At that time we hadn’t really hung out much in person, just talked all the time on AIM. That night we actually did hang out, played putt-putt, and became best friends from then on. (This is the second place we went on the date.) We were always together after that. All of our friends swore we would go out and get married one day, but I always said “No, that will never happen.” On July 19th, 2004, we did start going out, however, and have been together ever since. I am the luckiest girl in the world to have such an amazing boyfriend (and assistant as most of you know him too!) Thanks for 5 incredible years, Walter!!