Our Love Story : Part 2

Part 1
Part 2

Leah my best friend looked at me and said very excitedly. "Tim Porter! I never thought of it before, it's perfect!” “Haha, that guy you always talk about?” And she proceeds to tell me how her mom was just talking to him the other day and asked him if he wanted to get married soon. He had said yes, and that he was looking for a girl that shared his interests, maybe someone who would like to go to Africa on his upcoming missions trip. Leah said I needed to go with him! Haha, yeah right. I looked at her and she was actually serious! No, way, there are some major issues with that plan. I couldn't go to Africa, in three weeks, by myself, with a guy, for three months! As I laughed to myself I can remember feeling really peaceful about what she had just proposed. The idea of Tim and me, not the Africa part. People had told me they felt 'a peace' as they started a relationship or married their spouse. I wondered what it felt like exactly. Others had tried to match me up before, but this time it was different, I could tell. The day went on and Leah just wouldn't give this new match up. She talked about in front of people, and even referred to him as 'my future husband'. I thought the whole thing was rather humorous.

I drilled her on a few things that I thought would throw her off. I said, “But I don't want to live in Indiana, I want to live by the beach.” “Oh he wants to move to California,” she said. “Does he play the guitar?” “Yes!” “But does he play piano?” “Yeah, really good!” Oh boy.
I don't know why I asked these things because they aren't even in the top ten on my list of 'deal breakers' or anything. 

Well little did I know that my friend who had my best intentions in mind was about to do something that even she was scared about.

Leah as a close friend of Tim went to his going away party that was held for him. During the night she got up enough courage to talk to him about me. The middle of the room was actually the loudest and least conspicuous place to talk. Of course she only told Tim all my good qualities and told him he really should be praying about getting to know me when he came back from Africa. He thanked her, and told her that he would.

A few days later Tim shipped off to Africa, for what was supposed to be three months.

I was going about my daily life. My photography business was picking up and I was pretty happy with life. One day I was sitting at the computer when my dad walked in the front door. He walked up to me and said “Do you know a Timothy Porter” I said, with a quiver in my voice, kinda..I know of him. Why? "Oh, he's over in Africa doing the same things that you want to do, I just think that's interesting." And he proceed to stick Tim's prayer card up on our fridge. So as 'interesting' as it was that Tim 's doing the same things that I wanted to do, even more interesting is that dad brought his picture home. My dad doesn't bring up boys to his daughters, second he's always the one trying to declutter our house, why would he bring more paper home, and third, the card didn't even come to him, he was just helping to clean out an old mailbox at work and happened to find it. The next thing that made me think something special was up happened next.

Our Love Story : Part 1

Tim and Evy's Love Story

Part 1

This is a story about love, hate, and everywhere in between. After three years of marriage I'm finally taking the time to write out our love story.

I've been putting it off for years for a couple reasons, one being I never felt like I had enough time to record it properly, but I think the main reason was I never wanted to have it written out for the world to see. I just knew, and still believe it won't be understood by everyone. I felt like people would judge me for how unusual it is. Most people I've told the story to end up saying it's one the the best they're heard in awhile, but I still have others think we're a little strange. Someone asked me about it the other day and it was a lot harder to put all the details back in the right order, and if I want to continue telling a true story I'd better write it down before too much more time passes. So love it, hate it, or think it's strange, but here it is.

I'll start back in 2005. December 2^nd to be exact. I walked into the staff meeting that we have every morning at the non profit I worked for. I sat down next to my best friend Leah. She had been out of town for awhile and it was good to see her again. I noticed she was sitting with a whole row of people I didn't know. It was all guys so it'd be awkward for me to lean around her and see who they were, so I kept my eyes focused on the speaker and the floor. At the end of the meeting it was announced that one of the visitors had a birthday. We all proceed to sing to this guy named Tim. I looked down the row to see who I was singing to. By the end of 'the happy birthday song' I had had enough time to decide that this Tim guy was nice looking and seemed to be 'a nice guy'.

I ended up meeting Tim's dad and brother in the course of the next few days, but not Tim. We made eye contact once while passing each other but that was the extent of our interaction. Of course as a young teenage girl I wrote in my journal that night 'Leah's friend seemed to like me'.

Over the next few years my friend Leah would talk about Tim and his family. Turns out she had grown up with them and even used to babysit Tim. No, it's not that strange, because Leah is ten years older than me. I said Leah would talk about Tim and his family, quite a lot actually. She would mention how he was getting into photography, video production and travel, all things very close to my heart. Of course she wasn't saying any of this for my benefit because she never put us together as a couple. But I was however logging all this away in my mind.

One time while visiting Leah at her home in Indiana she thought it would be fun to visit the Porters. I was trying not to let her notice I was somewhat nervous about making a good impression on them. Tim wasn't going to be there, but I still wanted the family to like me. It was a nice time, his younger brother got s splinter in his foot so most of the visit was us trying to get it out. Mrs. Porter admits she didn't remember that I came over, but I guess that's a good thing, at least I didn't make a bad impression.

Ok, fast forward three years after I saw Tim for the first time. It's Fall 2008. Leah and I were driving down the highway on a cold October day. I was telling her how I was getting older and I didn't want to be wasting any of my life. I mention that I wanted to like shoot a documentary in Africa or something. Anyone that knows Leah knows she has this look that comes over her face when she get's 'a brilliant' idea.

3rd Anniversary

Every other year it's been a little tricky to celebrate our anniversary because I seem to like having babies the month before. It's hard to leave an infant for too long. This year, it didn't fall on the weekend so we had to wait a few days to officially celebrate. But Tim still made the actual day as special as he could. He took me out to dinner at our town's new Noodles and Company, we played around with our cameras, took pictures, and had such a special time 'deep talking' with each other. I love this man, and I'm so happy we're stuck together for life.
Every year we make sure to get a few pictures of us on our actual anniversary. There wasn't much light by the time we got out the door, but here are a few of us. And some of dinner too.

Haha, I love it how my dark circles are so obvious...not. Baby slept nine hours last night! That's a new one, and I sure hope it's here to stay!

Our Second Anniversary

I have been married to this wonderful man for two years now.

And they have been the best two years.

I love you Tim!

Thank you for being my friend, leader, hero, cohort, business partner, companion, champion, provider, and the keeper of my heart. 

The Day We Met | Three Years Ago

Can't believe it, but I met Tim three years ago! It seems like I've known him for eternity and yet, like I just met him. I still can't believe we got married and have a kid already!

June 28th was a big day in our love story, so we celebrated it with a picture, or two.

I still have to write down our whole story, because it's quite a doozy, (did i just use that word?) but it won't be for awhile at the pace I'm going. But I will say, we met at a fourth of July party a mutual friend was hosting, and we had both been very alerted to each other's existence and perhaps marital compatibility. I never wanted to look back and think that I had made the first move, so I didn't introduce myself to him the whole day. If he wanted to meet me he'd have to come and do it. So as I was getting ready to leave at 11:45pm he came up to me, stuck out his hand, and the rest is history.

I love you Tim! Thanks for coming over to say 'hi'.
~~
Ah, I am so behind on blogging! Don't be surprised if I post every day this week :p

A Year and a Half

Tim and I have been married over a year and a half now!

In one way it feels like we just said our vows in front of all our friends and family, and in another way it feel as though we've been married for as long as I can remember.

I guess it's just the nature of love and marriage.

We took these pictures on our actual year and a half anniversary.

I actually kinda dreaded kissing my whole life. I mean, how could it be nice, it was gross, who started it anyways? Why couldn't people just pat each other on the head to show affection, that would be a lot more sanitary and such.

Well after I kissed Tim the first time I knew why people liked it....all those songs about kissing taking you to another world, being on cloud nine, hovering off the ground, well I know what that feels like now.

Ok, get this, Tim wrote me a letter over two years ago while I was on vacation in MO and somehow it was lost and I never got it.
He was really sad because he had put a lot of time into it, "it was his finest work".
Well after two years the post office sent it back and I got to read it! It was so sweet.

I made gf cranberry, apple cobbler to celebrate our anniversary.
Man, I feel like I'm on one of those merrie-go-rounds I used to play on when I was a kid.
My life just keeps spinning and spinning and right when I think it's going to slow down, it keeps spinning.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining, just sayin'. Today was the first day in a week that I've been able to sit down at my computer and actually write something.
Hope to get some more blog posts up this week.
Happy Tuesday!

Love is in the Studio

Ok, I can't believe I'm actually letting you all see these.

Quite incriminating and embarrassing to say the least. But since I could use some humility and laughing is good for the soul I guess you can see. 

By popular demand....Tim and Evy's Valentine Shoot.
Don't judge.

Aren't we attractive.

So handsome.

Beyond gorgeous! Ha.



I have the longest hair so naturally the duty of getting these shots fell to me.

Here is our favorite shot of the evening. Do you have any idea how hard it is to get every hair to cooperate with you?

One more.
So yeah, we like having fun together. And for those of you who don't know us, I promise we're not actually this nerdy.
I don't think I'm even going to link or tell people about to this post. If you happen to find it, cool, if you don't, even cooler.
~~~
For those of you who voted on my post, I decided to print #2 because of the emotional appeal and #3 because it's my favorite and I love the textures in it. Thanks for helping me decide :)