If you’ve been with us from the beginning, first of all, thank you! We appreciate y’all! (If you haven’t and you want to go back to the start, click here.) Second of all, you know that Kevin definitely did a lot of big things early on in our relationship to make me fall in love with him very quickly. I was looking through all of our cards and notes to each other and wondering how could I possibly add to our story? But then it hit me. It isn’t a few big things that make you fall in love with someone. It’s all the little things. Things most people don’t take pictures of or write down. But, if you’ve read all the posts until this point, you also know I’m not like most people. Remember how I actually typed out our story and sent it to him for our one month anniversary? Yeah….
Well, a couple weeks after we got back from Mexico, Kevin came to visit me once again. We got a lot of very important (but not so romantic) things done for the wedding. We found his ring while we were shopping at BJ’s wholesale club (similar to Sam’s Club or Costco). Beautiful with three diamonds in it. Then we got to go cake testing. Mmmmm! I don’t normally like cake much. And wedding cake even less. But taking a day off work to taste different flavors of cake with my wonderful mother and amazing fiancé? Sure!
Little Things in Life All Add Up
Just seeing how happy this man is to be around me, that is worth everything. We don’t need anything fancy. We just needed to be together and enjoy even the little things. This time we got to be together for just a few days. Enough to get his ring, figure out what cake we wanted, get registered at a few places and celebrate my parents’ 30th anniversary. Mexico was the real celebration of that anniversary but we still wanted to take them out to a nice dinner.
He got to stay with my aunt and uncle for a couple weeks. But unfortunately, I was out of town training new photographers. What was really neat was that he got to spend time with all of my favorite people and get to know them better. They all loved him, but the bond grew even stronger over those few weeks. He went to a demolition derby with my brother and sister-in-law.
Picking Out My Ring
While he was there, I went to a jewelry store in Binghamton after work to look for a wedding ring. I sent him a photo, but trying to talk to him about it with all the demolition going on in the background, not so easy! Thankfully we could text! He liked it, so I bought it. He also got to play mini golf and go for some hikes with several of my cousins, some of my best friends in the whole world. And he spent time being a crazy fun playmate with my little cousins. They were very similar ages as his niece and nephew, so he had a lot of practice being “the fun one”. Seeing how my family welcomed him as one of their own reaffirmed that I had made the right decision. The best part about being out of town for work for four and a half days was the “I’m so glad you’re back” hug! Hello hugs are so much more enjoyable than goodbye hugs.
Then it was time for him to go home for his District Convention of Jehovah’s Witnesses. My parents went to that one as well because they had made it their tradition to go every three or four years to the one my grandma was assigned to. They didn’t know when they booked their hotel in January that they would also be attending the convention with their future son-in-law. For that matter, I never saw that one coming either! And I have to say, I was a little envious they got to go see him when I didn’t.
Sweet Little Things He Said
But I sent a card with them so they could make sure he got it when he was there. The card had a pic of a little boy kissing a little girl. I thought it appropriate since we knew each other as kids and had pretended to get married all those years ago. On the inside it said “I needed ya. I got ya. I’m keepin ya. Love ya.” Never have truer words been spoken. One of the corny little traditions we had between us was when we would buy a card, we would say however much it cost, that’s how many kisses the other person owed us to pay us back for buying the card. This one was $2.29 and I wrote on the back “How exactly do I give you 2 1/3 kisses?” Cheesy to the core, I know.
But he had sent me a card that said “One minute I love you, the next…(then inside) I love you more. And something tells me I always will.” He put a quote in it from Dr Seuss that said “When you are in love, you can’t fall asleep because reality is better than your dreams.” How great is that quote?! And it’s so true! When reality is better than anything you’ve dreamed, you have chosen the right one. And THAT is worth the wait! On the back, he wrote “Reneé Amy Back…Soon your name is going to be so sweet and short…Like you. :-)” Yep, he was pretty good at making me smile.
Getting My Ring Fixed
He had taken my ring back with him because it hadn’t been set right and he wanted to make sure I didn’t lose a diamond. But when he got it back, he took it to the convention with him. He said in a text to me “This ring that I have been holding for you will be back on our finger soon. I have had it near me all the time because it was my little piece of you that I could look at and think of you. I miss you as always and I can’t wait til this is back on your hand.” Many of his friends told me that he was going around showing it off. What a little cutie! See what I mean that it’s all the little things? All of these tiny moments add up. And if you don’t write them down, you will forget. I printed out each of our texts and emails and put them into a scrapbook with all our cards. When I look at this scrapbook, I get to fall in love with him over and over again.
He would also record new songs for me. Since he wanted them to be perfect before I saw them, and because to a perfectionist, nothing is ever perfect, I didn’t always get to hear these songs. He would just say “I wrote a song for you today but I’m not quite done.” And then I would discover it years later when I was going through files just for the fun of it. But even knowing he had put thought into writing me a song, that was enough. You can listen here.
Little Things That Meant a LOT
Another one of the “little things” that meant so much is that he had put a paper on his wall that had 120 days on it, counting down to the wedding. And every day that he was home, he would cross it off. And every note or card or text would have the number of days left.
After a little over a month without seeing each other in person (seemed way longer at the time), he came up to attend my convention with me in Rochester, NY. It was so nice for me to get to introduce him to so many more of my friends. I didn’t have to just show them a ring and a picture like he did at his convention 🙂 Having someone that loved God even more than they loved me was exactly what I needed and wanted. It was so nice to sit together for three days and look up Scriptures together.
We got to explore a little more of Rochester when we went with a friend to visit her daughter on Lake Ontario. It was quite windy there but very beautiful! There was also a lighthouse there that was built in 1822. Absolutely beautiful. But everything was made more beautiful just by being with this man. He sure did make life fun.
Learning More About Each Other
During these few months, we learned how to communicate better and how to solve problems together, things that are important in any marriage. We had our share of disagreements. Everyone will. We are all imperfect humans with different opinions who are raised in different environments. If we all agreed on absolutely everything, what fun would that be? Kind of like in Runaway Bride. She pretended to like the kinds of eggs that the guy liked. But that didn’t keep them together. She split at every wedding. What keeps us together is being able to have different opinions, discuss them and come to a mutual understanding. Not always an agreement, but an understanding based off of love and respect. When you can do that, you have learned a valuable lesson and your marriage will be successful.
Well that takes me to the end of this post. Nothing huge or exciting was discussed. Just a bunch of really little things. And at the day, I will take a hundred little things over one big thing any day. I hope you all have a great day! And as always, remember to tell those you love how much they mean to you. A few words don’t take much effort, but they can make all the difference! (Read the next part here)
Love, Reneé (and Kevin)
