Our Story from Childhood to First Date
You may know us as Kevin and Reneé. But do you know our story? I think of the Taylor Swift song “Love Story“…she sings “We were both young when I first saw you.” But the thing is, I can’t close my eyes and see a flashback of when we first met. I was three and Kevin was one. When we were kids, it wasn’t so much of a love story. I would only see him for one week every other year. I was his sister’s friend. He was my brother’s friend. Not exactly the one you want to spend time with, more the one you tell to get out of the room and leave you alone.
We had quite the sense of imagination when we were young. Mine was more making cakes out of mud and decorating them with flowers. Kevin’s was more trying to imitate MacGyver, setting the driveway on fire in the process. But still…our imaginations collided on one day. The four of us were playing dress-up (apparently this is how we thought people dressed on their wedding day) and we got the brilliant idea to “get married”. So Kevin’s sister played the keyboard while I walked down the steps to my pretend husband. That was a fun day.
But then we became teenagers who lost touch and then adults who were too busy. I didn’t get to come to KY except for a brief visit once or twice in ten years. I needed to see my grandma again, so I took a quick trip to KY. Kevin was laid off and we got to spend time together in the ministry that week. I thought he was hilarious! We were talking about finding out information about others on the internet and he said he was hard to find because if you typed in his name, all you saw was how “Britney Spears wants Kevin back.” (2009 reference to her ex-husband Kevin Federline) He said he was being serious, but that was the funniest thing I have ever heard! It only took one morning together to know we had chemistry.
The First Date
Three days later we went on our first date with his best friends, two of the most gorgeous people I had ever seen in real life. Intimidated at first, but they were so down to earth, I couldn’t help but to love them. Tried sushi for the first time at New Century Buffet in Glasgow and went bowling at Highlander Bowl. It was an ideal night. The night ended with a hug. I knew then and there that there would be plenty of hugs in our future… So glad I asked for this photo of us on our first date!
Bright and early the next morning, we met up to say goodbye before my long drive back to NY. My whole life, I disliked the drive to KY (Ohio goes on FOREVER), but now all I could think of was when I could get off work again to make the trip back!
I Let My Crazy Show and He Still Stayed
The next part almost scared Kevin away for good. I was so excited that I kept a journal of every interaction, every text and phone call. Back then a lot of girls kept a journal. But what they didn’t do was print that all up into a story and send it to their boyfriend on their one month anniversary. I was pretty forward and I’m so glad he was strong enough to take whatever I threw his way. Good thing cuz there aren’t many guys out there like him.
I knew I loved him right away. I mean, what’s not to love? He took a little more convincing. I didn’t blame him. He’d been hurt before. And being the opinionated, strong person I am, he didn’t want to get tricked into anything. (He still says I tricked him into marrying me, haha.) He wanted it to be on his timetable.
So began the four hour phone conversations when I would get home from work. We were on different time zones, so many times I didn’t get to go to sleep until 1 a.m. but it was so worth it! I learned early on that when he gets relaxed, it doesn’t take him long at all to fall asleep. I know I can take a little too long to tell a story sometimes, but three fourths of a way into a story, he would say “Whoa, I just had the craziest dream!” Thankfully, because of Inception, I knew you could have an entire dream in a few seconds, but still! (Hey, I’m talkin here!)
When I Knew For Sure
The moment I knew for sure he was hooked was when he had a sore throat one night and I told him we didn’t have to talk. But not only did we talk, he spent two hours playing guitar and singing for me over the phone. “I’m Yours” by Jason Mraz, “Wonderful Tonight” by Eric Clapton, “On My Mind” by Donovan Frankenreiter, to name just a few. Oh that voice! I could listen to it for hours! Definitely felt bad that his throat hurt, but he continued even after I told him he should just go to sleep so he could feel better. I felt very loved that night…
It had been almost two months since I saw him in person. A holiday was coming up (the end of a busy season at Olan Mills so I could get time off) and I wanted to surprise him. And this is where I will pick up the story in the next blog post. Stay tuned… (Read the next post here)
Love, (Kevin and) Reneé
