let all you do be done in love: camp romance

This week on Kelly's Korner she is doing a how you met your husband post and I decided to join in. Drewby and I met at this place...

...this place is called Lakeshore-it's Holy Ground. It's the Memphis Conference Retreat Center and it's on Kentucky Lake near Camden/Paris, TN. In the summer of 2004 Drew was working on Activity staff and I was a camper/volunteer counselor. The spring of 2004 I actually spent some time with Drew...we went to dinner in Jackson when Rachael and I came up to go to a preview day for Lambuth. We had dinner and it was nice-but at the time I was in a relationship with another guy so it was just dinner with a friend who I didn't really know at the time. Then a few weeks later Rachael and I went to Lakeshore with our youth group for a youth conference retreat and Drew was there again-just "helping out" or "freeloading" as we like to call it at camp. We hung out but just as friends.

The details from the Summer are actually very long and detailed. I was in a relationship-of almost 2 years with another guy and Drew had "spies" to try and talk to me about him and what-not. One of my really good friends from Church in Memphis was on staff with Drew and he was using her to get to me as well, and then this friend was communicating with my Mom. Long and elaborate stories and connections so I will just hit the high notes in bulleted form...

*I counseled my first wilderness camp one of the very first weeks of camp-spent time with Drew b/c his job on staff required him to. However, the campers were trying to "set me up" with one of the other guy volunteer counselors...
*Talked on the phone with Drew quite a bit, but at this time just thought of him as a "big brother"
*Drew started to "flirt" and "get into my head to get me to break up with the other guy"
*I volunteer a week and counsel with Carmen, one of Drew's good girl-friends-we talk all week about Drew, unknown to me Carmen was telling Drew what we were talking about...
*I went to a wedding of one of the girls who worked with my youth group who had been on staff. Her husband had also been on staff so the wedding was filled with camp people, including Drew. I went to the wedding with Diana-the one on staff that i went to church with. We met for dinner before the wedding at Chilies and Drew was there with many other people, including Ben. Drew wanted to know how I felt about cussing and whatnot so Ben volunteered to check it out. When the boys walked up to the table, Ben just shot off a long string of cuss words-I don't remember my reaction but Drew says I just laughed and moved on.
*Still at the wedding: we tried to get a group of people up for a camp-out/slumber party at Sam's house-my mom wouldn't go for it, i wasn't happy. So we compromised and went to a movie. It was Diana, Rachael, Me, Drew, and J.D. we went to see the Notebook, almost got kicked out because we were making fun of it...
*Was an actual camper at Sr. High-apparently flirted with Drew-don't remember this. Things start to get rocky with other boy-this makes Drew "happy"
*One of the last weeks of camp i volunteer again...on my night off I break up with other said guy...with Drew and Daniel watching...oh boy!
*A few weeks later Drew and I officially start the whole dating process..."long distance". it's my senior year of high school and he is in school in Jackson, TN. we get to see each other maybe every other weekend...an amazingly difficult to start off a relationship, but it made our relationship that much stronger.

So as a recap, we started dating in August of 2004...got engaged in July of 2008...and got married in November of 2009.