How did you meet each other?	When I was a freshman at Auburn, my friend Lisa and I went to a social at the Wesley Foundation. It was a 5th Quarter Social after one of the football games (I can't remember which one). Shawn and I were introduced to each other, but nothing else occurred between us during the social that night. Sometime later, Shawn invited Lisa and I to go ice-skating in Montgomery with a big group of people. We went and had a great time. I remember being a huge klutz on ice skates and Shawn being pretty good. After that night, Shawn and I started hanging out a lot, we would watch movies or play on his computer always having a great time.	The first time I saw, or at least noticed, Katie was at a "fifth quarter" social at the Auburn University Wesley Foundation after an Auburn football game. I can't remember what game it was, but it was near the end of the semester. We were standing with a group of people talking. The only thing I remember about the conversation is that the girls in the group were talking about how they thought they were too fat and needed to lose weight. This stuck out in my mind because it was then that I noticed Katie and how much she definitely didn't need to lose weight. She was perfect (in my opinion), not too fat, not too skinny. It was also then when I decided I wanted to get to know Katie a little better.       Not to sound like a predator animal on the hunt, but I had a mission: to get to know Katie better before the end of the semester and I kept my eyes and ears out for opportunities to accomplish it. The first opportunity to get to know this interesting and attractive new person was making cookies for "survival kits" that the Auburn Wesley Foundation made during final exam times. (I know that doesn't sound very manly, guys, but it's the best I could come up with at the end of the semester...plus, they were the really big cookies!) I was going up to my dorm room at the Wesley Foundation and I saw her in the kitchen with some of her friends helping to make cookies. I don't know what my plans were for that night, but I immediately changed them to include making cookies. I think I was the only guy there. It was the perfect non-threatening environment for me to learn more about her. She had no idea that I was interested in her, and that's the way I wanted it for then. I would throw out topics to talk about and bend my ear toward her if she had anything to say. Needless to say, I liked what I heard. She seemed like a wonderful girl, a perfect complement to her wonderful appearance.       After that night, I still wasn't satisfied, and I wanted to spend more time with her. A few days later, after talking with my suite-mate, Levi, about the situation, we decided I should call her and invite both her and her friends to go ice-skating. Levi agreed to go along so it didn't seem weird. So I got over my nervousness and called to invite her to go ice skating, which she accepted. Katie, Katie's friend Lisa, Levi, and I all went over to Montgomery and went ice skating at the mall. It was at this point that I wanted to slowly being revealing my interest in her. So I tried to give her more attention. It was all in vain, though, because I later found out that she thought I was interested in her friend, Lisa. After ice skating we were all hungry, so I suggested Krystal, because all guys like Krystal. Katie and Lisa had never eaten there before, so they were willing to give it a try. That's when they discovered that they did not like Krystal, and I first realized that most girls don't like Krystal for some reason. I think they both got sick afterwards.       We went back to Auburn and we all rented a movie and watched it. What is so strange about this is that I now know that Katie usually goes to sleep pretty early, but she and Lisa didn't leave the Wesley Foundation (where Levi and I lived) until 2 or 3 am. She claims it was insomnia, but I like to think she couldn't get enough of me. =)
How did the first date go?	Around exam time/Christmas break, Shawn called to see if I would go to Calloway Gardens with him on a date. Of course I said "yes," I was growing crazy about him. They were having their Christmas light's show so we got to ride around in a trolley and watch the delight of Christmas unfold before our eyes. We had such a good time that night so we made the decision to begin officially dating.	Another friend of mine that lived at the Wesley Foundation, Brent Rice, was planning a group trip to see the Christmas lights at Calloway Gardens, and I asked Katie to go with me. I knew the group of people going, but Katie didn't, so that gave us the opportunity to get to know one another more since I was the only person she knew in the group. It was a great night, clear skies and cold. It was even colder on the open-air "Jolly Trolley" that took us on the tour of the lights. The only way to keep warm was to snuggle up with someone else. Well, maybe that wasn't the only way, but that was the way we did it, and we didn't care to try anything else.       That night we had the DTR (Define The Relationship) talk and officially started dating: December, 1998. This was a very significant event since neither of us believes in recreational dating. So this became our first date.
How did he propose?	My family and I usually go snow skiing during the Holidays. This past Christmas, I invited Shawn to Breckenridge, Colorado to ski with us - he snowboarded while I skied. On the last day of skiing Shawn took me up to a really high slope (11,000 feet), the run we went down was called Centennial. On our way down this incredibly scary and steep slope, Shawn stopped and sat down. I skied over to him to see what was going on, and he asked me to sit down. My initial reaction was one of "are you crazy, I won't be able to get up if I sit down." When I finally got seated, he asked me to listen to a song. It was Bebo Norman's "A Page is Turned." I listened for a while and when it got to the part of the song where he says, "...and high upon a mountain, he asked her for her hand..." I knew what was about to happen and I started crying. Shawn maneuvered himself and his snowboard onto one knee (which was a hilarious site) and helped me stand. Then he said, "I love you and the only thing I love more than you is our God. Will you marry me?" Since you are reading this from our wedding website, you know that I said, "YES!" It's amazing to me that the big events in our lives together have been surrounded by the magic and joy of Christmas. I guess that is why a Christmas wedding is perfect for us.	Click here to see my journal of how it happened.