Our love story

It was a hot day in Charleston, SC - June 6, 2002, to be exact. The first day of Governor’s School, a 4-week summer program at the College of Charleston. After unpacking, all 200+ rising seniors gathered in the gym for a series of icebreaker activities. We were split up into groups by the month we were born in. The May babies were arranged in a circle. When I look up, this dude with BIG ears is staring at me! I paid him ZERO attention. I don’t remember the game we were playing, but it required you to switch places with other people in the circle. Before I knew it, that big-eared dude was standing beside me. He put his arm on my shoulder and told me, "You make a great armrest!" I don’t think I said anything, but if I had rolled my eyes any harder, they would have rolled out of my head. After the icebreakers, I found my suitemate and told her this guy had already hit on me. As I’m saying that, guess who walks up behind us... Yep! She spoke up for me and basically told him to stop being a creep, lol. I thought that was the last of him, thanks to her. The next morning, I went to my class called 'Making a Baby from a Single Cell'. It was NOT a sex education class, but rather the scientific exploration of ‘where babies come from'. How ironic, that my future husband walks into the class.

Learning about how babies are made by studying eggs with my lab partner. I really hope the irony of all this isn't lost on you guys. Considering he's my baby daddy now! HAHAHA

You've GOT to be kidding me

At this point, I am completely annoyed, I could not believe I had to spend the whole summer with this dude in my class! I blew him off. I had a boyfriend (and come to find out he had a girlfriend). I was at this camp to learn (HA!). Well, he learned quickly that I wasn’t going to be buddying up with him this summer and he moved on. The next morning, I saw him walking with another girl to breakfast. I. WAS. LIVID! In my mind, I was like how in the world could you move on from ME so quickly?! I was playing hard to get but GEEEEZ! I approached him at lunch and asked him why he didn’t take ME to breakfast. Honestly, the rest is history and we were inseparable the rest of the summer. I found out, after we were married, that he had called his Mom and they both conspired against me! She told him, "she will want you as soon as you don’t want her anymore." Well, it worked *rolling my eyes again*.

I'll admit it, I fell for that smile.. just look at it!

Charleston is now one of my favorite places on Earth. There are so many wonderful memories there; running to Mellow Mushroom in the rain, sunrise at the Battery, going to Burger King instead of the cafe for lunch, and being on punishment together because he missed curfew leaving my room. My suitemates Molly, Krupa, and Kristin all fell in love with him and basically ensured we spent every waking hour together with Craig David or Tweet playing in the background. Conversations were easy. I laughed until my cheeks hurt! There was never a dull moment. It was one of those rom-com, summer before senior year type plots. It was perfect.

And then it was over, or so we thought..

The four weeks were over and it was time to go home. We were completely distraught until we found out Lugoff (my hometown) and Eastover (his hometown) were only 30 minutes away from each other! His Nissan Sentra and my Honda Accord burned up US 601 A LOT over senior year. During this time, he became my very best friend. We weren’t dating because we were both still with other people. Personally, I take responsibility for this. I felt guilty for befriending someone else when I was already in a relationship. Looking back, I was completely in love with Hubby, but that period of getting to know each other was vital.

To this day, I KNOW that is the reason we are still going strong... we were friends first. Our friendship brought us through the tough long-distance college years. Stong communication allowed us to move past challenging times. I'm forever grateful for those 4 weeks in Charleston. I love our love and I'm so happy we learned to love together. This is our 19th love-filled holiday together. Here's to 90 more! Happy Valentine's Day from the Washingtons!