4th Anniversary... TODAY!

In honor of our 4th anniversary, I'll share a little bit of mine and Blake's story:

Blake and I went to church about 45 minutes away from each other, but we'd never really officially met. During the first week of school though, I hung out a lot with people that he knew from Knoxville. On the General Jackson, during orientation week at Lipscomb, we started talking about chemistry... and wouldn't you know it, there was chemistry between us! After meeting for lunches and library study dates (we're not even in the same field of study!), we went out on our first official date.

Our first picture ever taken together on one of 'library dates

A funny story from one of those early days:
We spent a lot of time in the library together at the beginning of our relationship. It was a great meeting place because if Blake didn't end up liking me, I could always just say that I really did just need to study... and also happened to end up studying in the same places he ended up studying! One night, early in our relationship, we were in the library "studying" and we were playing around. Somehow we started practicing signing our names. Blake signed his name first in a variety of ways. But then when I went to start signing, I wrote Blake's last name! I trailed off because it had totally been an accident, but I was so embarrassed! We laughed about that so much. My face turned so red.

This was us at a surprise birthday party Blake threw for me in October of 2006.

Spring Break was spent in Maryland during our first Spring Break together!

We spent a lot of time at Starbucks at the beginning of our relationship getting to know each other better! haha

Getting back into the swing of things after being apart in the Summer of 2007

Lipscomb's Battle of the Boulevard!

Spring Semester Lazor Tag Break!

Anteater's Ball Performance in November of 2008

Opryland Hotel with friends, December of 2008

June of 2009 when I was in Nashville for a friend's wedding

We got engaged on August 29, 2009. It was the first weekend of our last fall semester at Lipscomb. Blake took me out on a great date where we revisited a lot of places that were important to us around Nashville. We ate at El Palenque, where Blake had thrown me a surprise birthday party just 3 weeks after we had been dating. Then we went to Wal-greens and stocked up on some candy to take to the movie theaters. We don't go to the movies a lot, so it's always kind of special when we do.

We watched Time Traveler's Wife, and afterward decided to go to Centennial Park. Centennial Park was our very first date, nearly 3 years before, and we had a great time walking around all the spots where we used to sit and talk, or where I would listen to him play guitar and we would make up songs. We ended up sitting on the bench where we'd sat on our first date. While we were sitting there, he told me, out of the blue, to ask him any question and he would answer honestly. So I asked him what he was most looking forward to about his future. And he told me everything in his future included me. :) So I told him he could ask me one question... and he smiled at me and said he would hold onto it. I knew he was referring to asking me to marry him, but I was convinced that he hadn't bought the ring yet, so I had no clue he was going to ask me later that night!

We walked around a little bit more and climbed a tree that leaned over the water before heading back to school. We drove to his apartment, so I could get my car, and we met back over at the school. It was probably 11:30 at night, so we decided to walk around campus a little bit before calling it a night. We walked around campus a lot when we first started dating, and we used to sit on one particular swing. So Blake and I headed for our swing.

As we sat there swinging, I reminded him about how we had had our DTR (define the relationship) conversation on that very swing, three years ago. He looked at me and said, just like he had said it three years ago, "So what are we exactly, Catie?" And I laughed and said, "We're dating!" and reached up and gave him a kiss. And then he said "Really? Because I think I still have a question to ask you... Will you marry me?" I was shocked. But he had bought a ring, because it was glittering up at me! And I said yes and giggled a lot and then we were engaged!

Engaged!

Engagement Pictures from 2009

We graduated from Lipscomb in May of 2010! Blake's degree is in Biochemistry and my degree is Law, Justice & Society and Spanish!

I'm fairly certain that only our friends and family read this blog, but I'm enjoying reminiscing. So, on May 17, 2010 we tied the knot at Two Rivers Mansion in Nashville, TN. That pretty much gets us caught up to today!

Hope you enjoyed a little Blake and Catie Recap!