How it all began

A couple of months ago, many of my fellow bloggers told their story of how they met their spouse and about their dating life. I never got around to doing that at the time, but thought I would do it now.

Kevin and I met in the church van, The Phantom (that's what everyone called it), literally. He was a junior and I was a freshman and we were going with the BSU to a leadership conference in Little Rock. Being the one in the van from LR, I set shot-gun to help navigate. As we were driving, someone behind me kept pulling my hair as he would grab the back of my seat to turn around to flirt with the girls behind him. After a while, I turned around and said "Since you keep pulling my hair, I thought I would introduce myself, I'm Shaila." Now this is where the story differs. He said he then called me Sheila and I bit his head off, but I don't remember that part at all. Over that school year, we got to be friends. Not real close, but friends none the less. He and I both had girlfriend/boyfriends so not really looking I guess.

One year later on the same trip, a group of us were in one of the hotel rooms playing truth or dare. I was asked who I would go skinny dipping with. I said, "Oh that's easy, my boyfriend" (who was still back in LR, so most of them didn't know him). Then someone said "No, someone on this trip." So I said Kevin because I figured it was safe. It wasn't until much much later in our dating life that he told me he overheard his two roommates talking about it that night because they thought he was asleep. LOL At this point he had broken up with his girlfriend, but I was still with my very longterm boyfriend.

Later that semester, just before Christmas break we went on another trip in the same van to Memphis for a shopping trip with the college kids from our church. That's when we kind of seemed to officially hit it off. We spent the day shopping together and overtly flurting with each other. By the end of the night we were holding hands and he was playing with my hair. This is what began our "non-dating" period. Remember that boyfriend back home! LOL We went home right after this for Christmas break and I went home with every intention of breaking up with the boyfriend, but couldn't bring myself to do it after a close friend of their families died right after I got home. So I came back to school with nothing changed. But Kevin and I went on a couple of non-dates and were really good friends. About a week later the boyfriend picked a fight and that was history! Kevin and I started seeing each other everyday after that. That was January of my Sophomore year. He purposed in July between my Junior and Senior years and we were married one month after I graduated. We celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary this past June.