new every morning: Back to the beginning!

April 30th, 2005=our wedding day. Such a glorious day! We are in full anniversary celebration mode around here. We had the annual viewing of our wedding video last night. And this was the first year where we both made the comment, "We look so young." I think that means we are officially old. Scott brought home a dozen roses from work yesterday. And the kids helped him make chocolate covered strawberries and grapes. We dusted off the old wedding album this morning. And the kids and I took my wedding rings in for the annual cleaning and polishing so they're all shiny and sparkly, ready for another year! Today we're taking the kids to our wedding site so they can see where we got married. We haven't been back in six years, so I'm excited to see it! And then we have a hot date, hooray!

In honor of our anniversary, I thought it would be fun to take a little trip down memory lane and celebrate how God brought Scott and I together.

Mine and Scott's paths crossed for the first time on May 19th, 2002 (which happens to be my parents' 28th wedding anniversary. Awww.)

It was arrival day for all the new summer staff at Camp Balcones Springs in Marble Falls, TX. My sister, Whitney was on the full-time staff at camp that year and I was joining her at camp for the summer as a counselor. I arrived a day early from a wedding, so I was given a job to help check-in the new staff and make sure they had turned in all their forms, given camp a copy of their driver's license, etc.

I saw this tall, super cute boy standing in my line waiting to get checked in. He had the cutest smile and bluest eyes. My secret hope was that he wouldn't have any of his stuff turned in and I would have to spend extra time with him getting him all set-up. But being the Scott Ela that he is, of course he had already crossed all his "T"s and dotted all his "I"s. So our conversation was limited to the standard "Hi. Where do you go to school?" type of greeting and then the line moved along.

At dinner that night Scott was conveniently standing next to me in the line for food. The jury is still out on how that happened as mine and Scott's remembering of the situation differ. Regardless, we took advantage of the opportunity to talk more. It turned out we would both be lifeguards that summer, so starting the next day we would be in lifeguard training/certification together for the week. And then the next week we would be in Counselor Orientation. After these two weeks, the first round of campers would come. In our initial conversation, Scott and I discovered that he would only be working the first half of the summer and I would only be working the second half. I have to admit, I was a little bummed that I would only see him for two weeks and then not for the rest of the summer, but it was probably for the best.

During those two weeks, Scott and I were together pretty much non-stop. We had to consciously make an effort to get to know other people and not spend all our time with each other. I've never gotten to know somebody so deeply so quickly. In those two weeks we talked and shared so much. And then it was time for me to leave. The day I was leaving, Scott invited me to go skiing that afternoon with him, his dad and his brother since he had the afternoon off. Knowing that might be a little more than awkward since I didn't know them at all, I declined. Even though I would have loved to spend that time with him.

I only saw him one other day that summer, when he was leaving his term at camp and I was coming back for mine. That day, Scott asked me to come hang out with him while he got his stuff packed to head home. And I turned him down. Again. My sister had gotten bit by a brown recluse spider a few days before that and had to spend a couple of nights in the hospital. She was better, but I had already told her when I got there I wanted to go to the doctor with her. Seriously, who would choose to hang out with the perfect guy when they could go with their sister to get her spider bite drained?? Sisters win.

So we wrote a couple of letters that summer and then went back to our own schools (he was at A&M and I was at Tech) to begin a new year. We kept in contact when Scott would call me every couple of months or so and maintained a very distant friendship.

I graduated from Tech that next May of '03. I remember Scott calling me the night of his sister's wedding on May 10th, 2003 and telling me I should move to College Station or Austin after graduation. (Scott grew up in Austin and knew he wanted to return after school.) Austin, maybe. College Station, that would just be weird. But I told him I had already made plans to move to Florida. And that was the last time we talked for seven months.

While in Florida, I accepted a job with my college pastor, Treb who was then at a church in Austin, not at all thinking of Scott since we hadn't talked in months. I would be moving to Austin in January 2004. In December before the move, Scott sent out an email to everyone he knew saying his phone had fried and was asking everyone to send him their numbers again. I debated about sending him mine because I didn't want to seem forward or like I expected him to call me. But I decided since he had included me on the email, I would respond with my number and I told him about my new job in Austin.

He called me the next day. But I was too nervous to talk to him after so long so I didn't answer!! I ended up deciding that was stupid and called him back. We ended that conversation deciding I would call him when I had made it to Austin.

I took my sweet time calling him after I was settled in, but we talked a few times and then made plans to hang out when he was home in Austin for Spring Break in March. That week finally arrived, and we had our first date-ish thing on March 12th, 2004 after not seeing each other for almost two years. From that point on we saw each other just about every weekend and wore out the roads between College Station and Austin.

In June of that year, after three months of dating, Scott told me he loved me and knew he was going to ask me to be his wife one day. Sidenote: That's quite a bombshell to drop all at once. The "L" word followed up by a "hey, and just so you know, we're going to get married. And we've only been dating for three months. Long-distance." But if I know anything about this man, it's that he's ever-confident in his love for me. And thankfully, I was just as confident so I wasn't at all weirded out. He popped the question on October 22nd, 2004. We were married six months later!

Our story is such a reminder that God's plan and timing always wins. So much happened between May 19th, 2002 and March 12th, 2004. There was really only a two week connection. There was an initial distance of 470 miles. There were experiences in Florida. There were "other people." There were degrees to get. There were things to learn and growth that had to happen. There were so many points along the way where Scott and I could have never spoken to each other again. But God has a way of bringing everything together at that perfect moment. And even when we try, we just can't mess up what He's doing.

Our marriage has not been easy. It's been thrilling and fulfilling, but its not breakfast in bed every morning. It's been a lot of work and a lot of learning. And a whole lot of love. The sacrificial kind. We've had some glorious days and some really rough days together. Some that are still very raw. But at the end of any day, there's nobody else I'd rather have by my side.

The past six+ years have been such a crazy ride. And I can't wait to see what the next sixty bring!