A tribute to the love of my life.

Well, its that time of the year again: our anniversary. Jonathan and I made it to six years on August 3rd, which truly is a miracle. We have quite a crazy story... and looking back at myself as an 18 year old girl who rushed into marriage, I am so thankful that are stupidity actually worked in our favor! We normally don't tell our story, because everyone freaks out and.... it is just plain weird.... but here goes.

Jonathan and I met in Lanai, an island populated by 3,000 people. I can guarantee you, neither of us even considered the possibility of finding our "soulmate" on that island. It was decidedly the farthest thing from both of our minds. In fact, both of our hearts were elsewhere and in other relationships on the mainland. We met in January, and truly disliked each other right off the bat. I thought he was completely arrogant (and racist), and he thought I was a spoiled rich girl (I was completely broke, to clarify). Needless to say, we were both more than happy to go our separate ways. The only problem was that he was the youth minister at the church, and I was a youth. So, our contact was inevitable, but we remained cordial in our differences, he was my leader after all. Eventually, on an island that small, you run out of not only things to do, but people to hang out with. One night in April we actually allowed ourselves to have a conversation, and I realized, he's not SO bad. We hung out in groups every day for the next two weeks... then one night we did the unthinkable: we held hands.

Now you must understand, I am in the care of the 22 year old youth minister as one of his "youth" at age 17. This was not a good situation, especially on a small island where news travels faster than the speed of sound. So Jonathan did the "right" thing and shared our budding relationship with our Pastor whom suggested we take the next several days and pray about our new direction.

Jonathan showed up on my doorstep avoiding eye contact at all costs. He shoved his hands deep down into his pockets and kicked the rocks by his feet. I just stared. He finally started mumbling about something or other, but he couldn't quite get it out. Finally he came out with it and said "they think we should pray about it...." Completely confused, I asked him what we were praying about and he continued, "you know about Mmm..m..m" All of the sudden it dawned on me what he was trying to say. This guy is officially a lunatic. We held hands once, have been semi-friends for a whopping two weeks and he wants to talk about the "M" word? I asked him if he was talking about Marriage, got the nod I was expecting, and just started laughing. At this point Jonathan started nervously laughing with me, not knowing what to do. After a few seconds of debating if I should leave the island to get away from these apparently crazy people, I then get this evil thought that this could actually be fun. As they say in Pride and Prejudice "a girl likes to be crossed in love a little every now and again". I decided to humor the boy and have a little excitement in my life. Why not dedicate the next three days to such a preposterous idea?

I'll spare you the details of the next three days because there are far too many to list, but I will tell you that by the third day I was completely FREAKED out by all of the signs that encouraged the thought that we were destined to be. Trying to interpret if any of this could actually be genuine, I asked God for one final sign that this was to be my husband. I really thought I had God there. I mean how often does God jump when you say 'jump'? There was no way God would listen to my demands and that would leave me no choice but to flee from this terrifying prospect of actually getting married to someone I hardly know. It was Sunday morning, I was standing in church, and in the middle of worship (not five minutes before I demanded a sign), this respectable woman comes up to me and says "that thing that you have been asking God... he says YES" (P.S. no one has ever approached me like that prior or since). At this point, I just laughed again. This was so completely physchotic, but never had anything been so clear. This really was the man that I was destined to be with. Sure, he wasn't bad to look at... but defintely not my bleach blonde, green eyed surfer boy that I had always dreamed of, and I definitely wasn't in love. Jonathan and I snuck to the side of church and had the most ackward converstaion of my life. I told him I guess we were supposed to get married. From that moment on our lives were flooded with the most incredible love for one another. We started planning our wedding, Jonathan proposed in May and we got married 3 months later on August 3rd. I find him incredibly handsome :)

I guess that's where the restrospect comes in. We were SO excited to have found our purpose in one another, that we said why wait? We knew we were in love, we knew we were getting married... what is the point of waiting??? The answer didn't come until the first year of marriage when we finally *began* to get to know eachother. Two people with two different ways of life and two completely different backgrounds. In hindsight, wow, thank God our stupidity of "Fools Rush In" actually survived the deathly hollows of marriage.

Jonathan and I are so completly in love. He is my perfect fit and knows me better than I know myself. I didn't know if I believed in soulmates....  until I found him. We have had some trying times, but God has been so faithful and has always brought us back to the fact that he brought us together... we are so glad he did.

Jonathan, my life would be so incomplete without you. You are the joy in my life and my reason to love. I am so proud of the man that you have become. There is no one else in the world I'd rather spend every beat of the rest of my life with. Thank you for loving me more than I've ever dreamed or deserved. Happy Anniversary... we made it six years!!! CACCCHUUUGA!

Our wedding was about as traditional as they come. Poor girl, I had no idea what I even liked I was so young.


This was our first anniversary. Check out his hair... better yet, check out my hair. Really.. I can't believe I'm showing this.

This is the stage when we would cornrow Jonathan's hair and put beads at the end. Hardcore.

And then he would tie it back... ew...

My parents were really impressed when they first met him...

Yay, he finally looks like my normal handsome husband!


This is when we lived in LA and first started getting into photography... good times.

This is his Native American profile. He's very proud of his roots. ... ......... for real.

And he's amazingly talented at guitar, but pretends he isn't. That's a nice mohawk right?

And here we are being best friends...


And there is our story.

P.S. When the lady found out that the message she had delivered of "God says YES", was interpreted that we would soon be husband and wife, she was horrified. Good thing she didn't know what she was delivering, or she would have never done it!