introduction... friendship... relationship... engaged...

In the late summer of 2005 I went walking in the park with my sister and her husband. I came straight from work and still had on my dress clothes. That morning I wore bright green socks which did not go with anything I had on. I rolled my dress pants up to keep them from getting dirty. We did what everyone does after a great walk in the park… we went for ice cream. Baskin Robins was down a little ways from the park. We walked in and a few friends from church were sitting inside eating ice cream. I knew them all but one…  Pat, Aimee, Laney, Makenzie and another guy. Pat made reference of my green socks… I jokingly told him I had forgot to unroll my pants before we went for ice cream. The guy was smiling ear to ear. I remember thinking how cute is this guy… I had seen him at church in the halls; he just smiled all the time. It was a couple of weeks later that I got a call from one of those in Baskin Robins, it was Aimee, she called me at work to share with me that this guy was really interested in me and she wanted to know if we’d all go out to eat, bowling or something… I was flabbergasted!  I said sure but we got off the phone without scheduling anything. Their daughter, Laney, went to the school inside of my work… she was always at my door talking to me. I didn’t put any effort in getting anything scheduled. I had asked the Lord to guard my heart… and I felt as though he would guide me to the guy he had waiting for me. I never dated and I knew that I was only going to start a relationship as friends. I just don’t know how a relationship could work without the foundation of a friendship. October rolled around which brought Judgement House, a play at church. I was formally introduced to that guy, Ricky, during Judgement House. He was working security. I spent that week walking around the church and conveniently running into him several times during each night. The week after Judgement House Laney stood in my door way of my office and asked, “Are we going to go bowling or what?!” I hesitantly agreed and that Friday night we went bowling. Our first date consisted of awkward laughs because neither of us could bowl. I remember sitting on the ledge of where you step down to the lanes because I was too nervous to set next to him on the seats. He came over and set next to me on the ledge. 

The first time Ricky took me home I boldly told him my intentions. I was only looking for a friend. Once the foundation of friendship was laid we would pray about where God would have us to go. I laugh now at how I missed how plainly God placed Ricky in front of me and I made all the rules as to not mess up what God would want… or what God had already given me. Ricky, the gentleman that he was, kindly gave me the space to realize what he already knew. We spent just about every Sunday, Wednesday, Friday and sometimes Saturday nights together double dating with Aimee and Pat. The only way we didn’t eat ourselves into being overweight was all the exercise we got from the consistent attempts at bowling… all we did for several months was bowl and eat… eat and bowl.

Our friendship was built on quality time together. We talked about everything. We had a mutual understanding to learn everything we possibly could about each other. It was November when Laney stepped outside of the door at school and called Ricky on my phone. She surprisingly asked him if he was my boyfriend… he said, “Check yes… twice…” she asked if I was his girlfriend and I replied with “Check yes with a heart.” We were officially official thanks to Laney!  

One night we were sitting at Hibachi’s eating dinner, Ricky was to my right and Laney and her friend Joli were sitting on my left. Ricky leaned over to tell them a joke of some sort… I realized at that moment how I was truly in love with him. Our first solo date was lunch together and on our second solo date we sat drinking hot chocolates at Starbucks… When he took me home my mom asked me how everything went my reply to her was “If he had asked me to marry him tonight, I would have said yes.”

St. Patrick’s Day was the first time I met Ricky’s mom, dad, sisters, brother-in-laws, nieces and nephews. We all had dinner and afterwards Ricky and I went for a walk in the park. We reached the wooden bridge where he awkwardly made reference to the way ducks eat as we watched some swim below. He stepped back and asked if he could hug me… for the first time. We had done it! We had completed the laying of our friendship foundation. We were ready for a relationship built on love and the Word of God. I spent the summer of 2006 with Ricky and his family swimming and at all the family get-togethers.

Ricky showed me the greatness of how deep and wide family and their value is. He loved his family so much. He told me that his dad once said if he is sitting in the back seat and his mom was in the front seat of a car that he missed her. I knew from that simple statement that if we could be anything like they were we’d make it in this world. He and I both had great examples of what marriage should and could be in our own family. We were in love… we spent the next 2 years learning about what made each other tick, our beliefs about God, families, dreams and goals. 

In the middle of December of 2008 Ricky and I had gone for a walk in the park again… to “our” wooden bridge. It was rainy and cold… I was sort of under the weather that day. The way to the park Ricky had been talking about taking a trip to the mountains. He thought it would be romantic to ask my hand in marriage there. All I could think about is why the heck would we go to the mountains! I thought he would take me somewhere that meant something to us… I just smiled and didn’t say anything to him. We had reached the bridge. He began the conversation about our first hug on that bridge on St. Patrick’s Day. He was quizzing me to see how much I could remember about that day. I brought up the conversation about the way the ducks eat and how we should all be on a duck diet… cause you never see an overweight duck… He stood next to me and I placed my hand in front of him pushing him back and gesturing how he stepped back and asked for a hug. I then told him that I turned around, which I did… but when I turned around I thought to myself that’s not how you did it… this time he was down on his knee with that same grin as the first time I saw him at Baskin Robins. “Amanda, will you marry me?” - “YES!” We hugged again that day… it was obviously different we weren’t shifting from friendship to relationship… we were shifting from relationship to a life long agreement to love and to cherish each other.