How did we get here?!

Since I said we were taking a walk down memory lane... I figured I should start from the beginning!
Jared and I met in Auburn in the Fall of 2005. We had mutual friends (shout out to the Fergusons!) that tried to arrange for us to meet several times the previous year, but it just never seemed to work out.
Finally.... without ANY planning at all.... we accidentally met one Tuesday night at Bodega (yes, we met at a bar)!! I have always, and will always, hold on to the fact that it was a quiet night spent with friends on the backporch.... that seems to make the fact that we met a bar seem a little better! =)

Either way... after a little while of "playing games" we made it "offical" on October 9, 2005! I will always remember our first date to good ole Outback on Opelika Road! There is a picture of the two of us from the night we met, but it's only the back of Jared's head and my face!! Here is one of the first pictures we took together! I was clearly smitten with those pearly whites!

The next few years flew by!!! Jared graduated from Auburn in December 2005, moved just outside of Atlanta for his first job. I still had two semesters left to go, so we decided we would try the long distance thing. Even thought we both spent many every weekend in the car.... it was worth it! I graduated in August 2006, and moved to Columbus for a year to work as a Speech Pathology Aide.  After that year it was back to Auburn for graduate school!! We counted on long nighttime phone calls (which he just LOVED... insert sarcasm here) and weekend visits to keep us going. Thank goodness for those weekends!!

In the late summer of 2008, Jared was dealt a blessing in disguise. The economy was steadily declining, and unfortunately the business he worked for was unable to keep it's all of it's employees. It was a very trying time, as he had recently purchased a home in Villa Rica, Georgia, but we knew there was nothing God would give him that he couldn't  handle! It was a tough few months, but in October 2008 he found a job working in Montgomery (SO MUCH CLOSER TO AUBURN) for the Alabama Department of Environmental Management!!!
BUTTTT... .guess what happened in that downtime?!?!  Check out the next post to find out... ;)