Mr. Dove and I first met at a summer camp when we were 16 years old. Nope, not church camp! An engineering camp. I had absolutely ZERO interest in engineering, but I was 
persuaded to go by my best friend. {Boy do I owe her!}
persuaded to go by my best friend. {Boy do I owe her!}Unlike the good ol' all-American boy-meets-girl stories of our time, our story does not begin with {love at first sight}. Oh no, quite the contrary. He thought I was {bossy}. I was. I thought he was {rebellious}. He was.
However, by the end of the week, we had come to accept each other as our friends seemed to overlap like circles of a Venn diagram closing in.
The summer we were 17, many of us who had attended the engineering camp the year before, gathered together once again--including my best friend, {the hoodlum}, and me. Only this year was much different. My {unknowingly} husband-to-be and I hit it off from the first day and became best friends. We went everywhere together, ate every meal together, and {the engineering whiz} helped me with every project so I didn't look completely inept.
Then, toward the end of the week, {the girlfriend} showed up. She came to visit for a day and suddenly I was hyper-aware of how close he and I had been getting. I had already learned some very important lessons in life, so other than shooting him an email or instant message from time to time, I bowed out.
Fall and winter came and went, but then {spring} arrived. And with it, the best instant message I have ever received. While sitting at my parents' computer, chatting with friends as was fashionable, a small screen popped up.
{ Hi :) }
One word plus one expression. But it changed my life. As silly as it sounds, when I read that, I was filled with such peace. I {knew} he and {the girlfriend} must no longer be together.
And as they say, we lived {happily ever after}!
Well. Mostly.
