It's My First Day of Work!

Today is my first day of work at the hospital!!

I am really excited and really nervous, but praise God I have made it this far!

Check out my new scrubs!!

How We Began Dating: "A fine beginning is a beautiful thing."

Mike and I were going to write this together, but finishing up his first year of medical school keeps him really busy. So, I am going to get this started, and he can edit or add more when he gets some time.

Here is the story of our "fine beginning."

Mike and I first met in August 2004, at a day outting for the college that we both worked for, Florida Hospital College. All I knew about him was that he was a new employee and that he had recently graduated from Southern University (Mike sportin' a SAU t-shirt below).

At the time, I was very involved in a collegiate Bible study group (below)...

and a few of my friends from the group had graduated from Southern too. So, I told Mike about the group and invited him to check it out. Little did I know at the time that it was our mutual friend, Dipika, who had gotten him the job at FHC. Mike did start coming to our Bible study group through our mutual friend, but we didn't really talk to each other much until a weekend work retreat at Clearwater, FL, in early November. Most people at the retreat were married with families, so my friend Karen, Mike, and I (all single) hung out together the whole weekend and had a lot of fun!

After the work retreat, Mike and I were more comfortable talking to each other, so a friendship was beginning. We got to know eachother a bit better when we went to hear a Christian speaker I had acquaintance with and another time when we ran into each other in the hospital cafeteria and had lunch together. One afternoon, Mike came to my office and asked if I wanted to help him with a Christmas project for a local nursing home. I said yes, and that began a regular routine of talks in my office and lunches together at the hospital cafeteria to plan the event. Sparks started flying when we went shopping for Christmas angel ornaments for the nursing home residents. How did it happen? We were sitting across the table from each other at a faculty and staff luncheon, and Mike asked me if I wanted to go shopping for ornaments with him. Our boss, Dr. Greenlaw, overheard and said, "That sounds like a date." We both denied it, but we went to dinner and talked until late in evening. We did get some shopping done, but we started too late and had to plan another night out. From there, we just kept going out and spending lots of time together. We did lots of talking on the phone too. He scored BIG points with me when he called from Wisconsin early on Christmas morning to wake me up so that he could be the first one to wish me a Merry Christmas (below is a pic of us at Christmas in Montana a year later). {:0)

There was a morning in early January when Mike asked me if I was interested in dating, and I freaked out! I liked him a lot, but I wasn't sure that it was a good idea. He was currently in the process of interviewing at various medical schools far away, and the possibility of a long distance relationship was entirely unattractive to me. I tried to slow things down and told him we should stick to hanging out with the group and maybe not have lunch every day together like we had been. He reluctantly agreed to it, but we were both so miserable after one day of withdrawal, that we quickly decided our daily lunches had to stay. We continued to discuss the topic of seriously dating. As far as the sticking point of a long distance relationship, Mike told me he thought giving our relationship a try was very much worth it to him and said that he would even be willing to consider putting medical school on hold for a year if that was all that was holding me back. It was around this time that he was due for an interview at his first pic of medical schools, Loma Linda University. The fact that he would even be willing to consider postponing medical school for another year touched my heart very deeply.

One of Mike and my favorite things to do when we were unofficially dating was to walk down Park Avenue in Winter Park, ending up at a park bench on the lawn of the Casa Feliz Historic Mansion. Sometimes we'd bring Mike's astronomy book and a blanket along, and we would look up at the stars and talk for hours. On January 17, 2005, Mike and I went out to dinner at our favorite Indian restaurant, The Clay Oven, had a BALL bowling (punn intended), and then went for a walk down Park Avenue. I brought a special picnic blanket I bought that weekend (for future stargazing events), and tucked a journal I bought for him (he likes to journal) in the folds. When we got to our stargazing spot in front of the Casa Feliz, we sat on "our bench." I told Mike I bought him something that I thought he might like and handed him the journal. It was a journal entitled "New Beginnings." I marked one of the pages with a bookmark that quoted an old Chinese proverb, "A fine beginning is a beautiful thing." I had written our names (linking the 'k' in his name and the 'y' in my name with a heart), the day's date, and then, "I like the way this new beginning looks," on the page. Mike opened up the journal, looked at it for a while, gave me a blank look, and then asked, "Does this mean what I think it means?" We both felt a little awkward for a moment. We walked back to the car and discussed what "this" really meant. From that point on, that old Chinese proverb has been very special to both of us.

ENGAGED! Planning a new beginning...

Well, the next wedding pics you'll see posted on this website will probably be ours, because WE ARE ENGAGED!

We've actually been seriously discussing marriage for a while, but Mike officially proposed with a ring on Wednesday, March 29, 2006, on the lawn of the Casa Feliz Historic Mansion (the place where we started dating).

The day went something like this:

1) I took my finals--HURRAY! Then I had my first training meeting for my new job (which starts next week).
3) Date night started out with a great workout at the gym.
4) We had dinner at Za Bella Ristorante (below), which is where we had our first Valentine's dinner.

5) Mike tried to recreate the night we started dating (so sweet!), which was dinner, bowling, and walk down Park Avenue to "our bench" in front of the Casa Feliz Historic Mansion. He had thrown his back out moving some furniture earlier, so bowling got scratched from the night's agenda (we still had a GREAT time together). After dinner, Mike took me for a walk down Park Avenue. We stargazed in front of Casa Feliz (below) and reminisced about previous dates we'd had there.

Mike asked me to recount how we started dating in that very same spot and then got down on his knee, gave me a ring, and asked me to marry him. I said YES!