Abigail & Joe

About Joe

I'm pretty much summed up in one word: nerd.

No, wait...I mean Knight. Yep, that's it.

;)

…

Go figure that Abi would hi-jack my section before I could even get to it. ;) Although I suppose her initial assessment is pretty much on the money. I’m definitely a science nerd. In May of 2008 I earned my degree in Clinical Laboratory Science and have been working at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN as a lab tech since the end of April, 2008. My job is to identify antibodies found in a patient’s serum that would cause a reaction if the patient was transfused. I find it incredibly interesting, though trying to explain it to the uninitiated can almost be an exercise in futility. ;)

The last two summers I’ve enjoyed playing softball one night a week with a couple of the men in my lab. I’m not the most outdoorsy of people, but I also like sitting on the shore of a river or lake fishing; going for walks, jogs and hikes; camping; and target shooting. I’ve been interested in writing for years and finally have three books, co-written with my friend Tim Chaffey, published. They are a trilogy of Christian youth fiction pieces titled The Truth Chronicles. A bit of a shameless plug, but you can contact me to order a set if you so desire. ;) Other activities I enjoy are reading, photography, Bible and theology studies, and studying American history.

About Abigail

Princess Meets Knight (well, sorta)

Joe:  We met at the Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs, CO in August of 2009.  I was there for the five-year meeting of Sasquatch Hunters.  A group of us had spent several years in the forests of Canada searching for Sasquatch and we were taking advantage of this meeting to try and drum up more financial support.  My role in the expedition had me spending significant periods of time out in the wilderness, and I really had grown accustomed to that sort of life.  I experienced a great deal of anxiety while at the meeting and eventually needed a break from it all.  I wandered around the area for a good long while and finally stumbled upon the Garden of the Gods.  While there I saw what looked to be a cave up in the cliff face and my primal urges took over.  I began scaling the rock in attempt to get to an area that looked like "home" to me.

Abigail:  I had traveled to Colorado with my sisters and a vanload of friends for the annual Homeschool Alumni national reunion. After spending a weekend of fun and fellowship at a camp between Denver and Colorado Springs, a bunch of us decided to visit Garden of the Gods on Sunday afternoon before heading back home. After poking around the gift shop a bit, most of us headed out on the trails. We were fascinated by the huge and unique rock formations, and some in our group tried climbing the smaller rocks.

It was then that I noticed a rough-looking fellow that I didn't recognize. He was part way up one of the huge rocks, and as he wasn't moving at all, I concluded he must be stuck in an area without any handholds. Although I am terrified of heights, I knew I couldn't let this stranger remain up there without at least attempting to rescue him. Borrowing a rope from one of my fellow HSAers, I somehow managed to maneuver myself far enough up the cliffside to toss out the rope. The stranger caught it, and I was able to carefully lower him to safety.  

Joe:  I must admit, it was quite embarrassing to require being saved like that. I blame the fancy food at the Sasquatch Convention…I’m pretty sure it totally wrecked my “wilderness sense.” However, I was very happy to be on solid ground again, though it really surprised me that someone like Abigail would take the time to rescue someone who looked like me (I hadn’t shaved or had a haircut in a very, very long time). With my communication skills pretty much wiped out due to the time I’d spent in the wild, I wasn’t able to convey my thanks very clearly, but eventually it seems I got the point across. I was again surprised when she finally understood my request for a way to contact her later and she gave me her e-mail address.

The convention ended, and sadly the group I was a part of couldn’t get the necessary funding to continue looking for Bigfoot. With nothing else to do, I made my way back home. After I was employed and living on my own again, I came across Abigail’s e-mail address and decided I should try to reach her. It wasn’t like me to e-mail someone that I really knew nothing about, but there was something different about her and I thought it was worth the potential risk. I was very shocked when I received a response from her, and even more surprised when it became a near-daily experience.

Abigail: With Joe's rough appearance, my sisters were very wary and warned me not to give him my email address. At first I wasn't going to, but he kept asking and I finally decided it probably was safe enough. He was so rough-looking that I couldn't imagine he'd know how to run a computer anyway. So we gave this strange fellow a little granola and water that we had with us, made sure he was headed back to the convention center, and then began our long drive east, all the way back home.

I'd nearly forgotten about the incident when, about 6 weeks later, I received an email from a certain Joe Westbrook. It took me quite a while to realize who that name belonged to - and I was shocked to see how well he could communicate in writing. To my further shock, we seemed to have quite a bit in common, and as we exchanged emails over the following weeks and months, we began to build a friendship that gradually became more and more meaningful.

And the rest, as they say, is history. :)

Abigail at Garden of the Gods, August 2009, just before rescuing Joe.

:ahem:

I e-mailed Abigail that day, but due to her switching domains on her website a couple of months earlier, that message was bounced back to me.  This led me to do the honorable thing - I looked her up on Facebook.  I sent a very brief message there and waited for a response so I would feel free to send a longer e-mail that went deeper than the information given in my eHarmony profile.  The first "real" message was quite long, and I was surprised to get a fairly long response.  We began e-mailing pretty much every day and most of the e-mails were quite long, actually.  We discussed all sorts of topics from silly to serious.  I was even able to get her to send me her phone number after only a week of e-mailing, and I was able to make a few phone calls during October and November.

Abigail: God sure has a sense of humor, doesn't He? When I signed up for an eHarmony profile back in January of 2009 it really wasn't with the hope of finding a husband on there. For one thing, I don't believe it's a girl's role to be "looking" for a guy in the first place (she can put herself in positions of appropriate availability, but it is the guy's job to initiate and pursue). And, secondly, meeting a husband on eHarmony was about the most unromantic thing I could think of, and not what I wanted my love story to be like. ;)

But I went ahead and signed up for a profile anyway, just out of curiosity. I was quite sure I wouldn't run across any like-minded guys that way, and I definitely didn't think it was worth any financial investment. So I just got the free account, limited to communicating only on free weekends (every couple months or so), and I proceeded to find much amusement in the profiles that were sent my way.

By the summer of 2009, I found myself emotionally healing from some difficult experiences and earnestly seeking the direction God wanted for my life. He nudged me to step into more full-time graphic design work, and my efforts along those lines were greatly blessed. Soon I had more jobs than I could handle and there was little time for other things. I rarely even looked at the matches eHarmony was sending me, and I seriously considered shutting down my profile completely. Only a couple guys had contacted me through it, and none of them were even close to being truly like-minded. All the profiles started to look the same, and it was discouraging to see the apparent value systems of these guys who called themselves Christians. Besides, I didn't even want to meet a guy that way...right? ;)

On September 26 I noticed that someone from Rochester, MN, had visited my personal website. For some reason I immediately suspected that it was an eHarmony match, and I logged on to see who it might be. Sure enough, a certain Joe from Rochester had been matched with me that morning. His profile was admittedly a bit more interesting than some of the others had been, and I especially noticed the way he described himself as being very conservative-minded, wanting a girl who was willing to take a stand for Biblical truth even if it meant going against popular mindsets and lifestyles. I wondered if he might email me (since I only had a free eH profile, that was the only way I could communicate except on free communication weekends), but when no email arrived that evening I dismissed the idea, thinking little of it because the same scenario had happened several times before.

So...it was quite a surprise to check my email the next morning and find a Facebook message from Joe, saying that he'd seen my eH profile and tried to email the day before, but the email hadn't gone through. It was just a short note, but I was admittedly impressed by his persistence in tracking me down on FB and having nerve to write. I typed out a quick reply right before heading off to church, giving him my email address. I didn't hear any more from him that day, but Monday morning brought a surprisingly long introductory email. I immediately liked his skillful way of writing and his cheerful attitude, not to mention his heart for the Lord and the way he didn't hesitate to take a leadership role in stating his intentions and asking straight-forward questions.

But...I was incredibly scared by the whole idea of "trying again" with a relationship. I'd been badly hurt and disappointed twice before, and I was still healing from those situations. Throughout October and November, as Joe and I continued to exchange daily emails and occasional phone calls, I found myself at a near panic point several times because of the risk involved in moving forward. I was afraid to let myself even begin to enjoy Joe's emails or to appreciate him as a simple friend, though I could hardly help that. But I didn't want to like him...I didn't want to hope, only to have it all snatched away again. My emotional walls were very high.

Making this all much more confusing is the fact that Joe is, quite simply, very different from the kind of guy I thought I was waiting for. Our family backgrounds and upbringing are widely different, and in other ways he just didn't seem to "fit" the ideal "Mr. Right" I'd created in my mind. Was I at risk of "settling" for a situation less than God's best just because he was interested and no other guys were in sight?

And yet, as we continued talking, I found myself liking this guy more and more. I just couldn't help it, try as I would. I threw all my weird viewpoints at him from day one, making no effort to appear more moderate and trying to scare him off...and I was shocked when he kept replying with complete agreement. He brought up a good share of the big and difficult subjects himself, always laying out a viewpoint that aligned with mine. I was impressed that he'd arrived at these conclusions through his personal Bible study - he wasn't just repeating things he'd been taught all his life. I was also thankful to be able to contact some of Joe's closest friends without his knowledge, getting their validation of Joe's heart for God and his faithfulness in his Christian walk.

Joe:  We met in person for the first time on Friday, November 13th at the Pizza Hut in Viroqua, WI.  Abigail and her sisters Susanna and Lydia were there for an HSA reunion in Westby, WI and I had been invited to come down for the weekend, too.  Meeting at Pizza Hut before going to the house where the reunion was being hosted seemed like a great way to break the ice and make it a lot less awkward for me. Granted, it was still awkward: I was meeting a woman that I was already thinking God could be bringing into my life in a more permanent sense, as well as two of her sisters, and then an unknown number of complete strangers. And to top it off, I had hardly gotten any sleep before heading to Viroqua (I work overnight and in my excitement and nervousness over meeting Abigail I had been unable to get more than an hour or so nap all day). However, I headed down and had a great time of conversation at Pizza Hut and a great time playing games in Westby with some of the other homeschoolers Abigail knew. Not wanting to be presumptuous, I had decided that instead of taking up the offer of lodging at the house where the reunion was held, I would stay at my dad’s house in West Salem, WI (about 45 minutes away). This meant driving back down to Westby on Saturday, but I thought that extra level of safety would be more comfortable for both of us. Toward the end of the evening on Saturday, Abigail and I spent a considerable amount of time talking near the bonfire in the backyard. This was the first time during the weekend that she and I had any significant conversation by ourselves, and as we progressed it became very easy to speak freely. I was disappointed when it got late enough that I needed to head back to West Salem, but I was glad we had the time we did.

Abigail: I was somewhat nervous about meeting Joe in person, but I wasn't set on the relationship going one way or the other and was mostly just curious to see what would happen. That first meeting was very awkward as I look back on it now, but all things considered it went quite well. I liked the way Joe conducted himself, and we had no trouble carrying on conversation. His cheerful steadiness, casual comfortableness despite not knowing anyone else at the gathering (he was the only non-homeschooler there), and infectious laughter made me smile, and I was pleased with his lack of hesitation when asked to lead the group in prayer at lunch time. 

Even more surprising was the way he wanted to continue pursuing our relationship after meeting me. I'd been fairly sure he'd meet me and want to call everything off, since that had been my experience in previous "maybe" situations with guys. But no...he liked me anyway? Wow. Now I was more confused than ever! I felt a need to convey that confusion to Joe, not wanting to lead him on or make him think I was feeling things I wasn't. I did appreciate him as a friend, but at that point I wasn't ready for more.

Joe: The first e-mail I got from Abigail after the weekend in Westby left me initially very discouraged, but that’s mostly because I didn’t read it close enough to catch exactly what she said. At that point, she only saw me as a friend, but my skimming of that particular paragraph left me with the impression she wanted out at that time. When I went back and re-read the e-mail later that evening, it wasn’t nearly as bad as I had thought, and I was reminded by what she said that if God didn’t lead us beyond the point we were at, my trying to force it would only be harmful to both of us.

Abigail: Joe's response to my "clarification" email meant a great deal to me. He thanked me for my honesty and said he had no intentions of pushing things any faster than I was comfortable with. His understanding and willingness to be patient made me feel a lot safer, and we agreed to continue emailing and chatting over the next three weeks - until the weekend he was planning to come down and meet the rest of my family.

I laugh a bit as I look back now because neither Joe nor I expressed any excitement about his first trip down here. We planned it all out matter-of-factly, but I think we were both a little too nervous to feel excited about the weekend. From our time together in WI and the many other exchanges we'd had, I knew Joe and I would get along just fine. But would he fit in with the rest of my family? And what would my parents think? I had kept them well-informed of how our relationship had been progressing, and they'd encouraged me to keep giving Joe a chance. But what would they think of him in person? I spent a lot of time praying about it, knowing that we all greatly needed God's wisdom in the situation.

Joe:  "Nervous" doesn't even begin to describe how I felt.  :P  I had, of course, been hearing a good deal about the goings-on in Abi's family over the course of our exchanges, and while I didn't expect too much trouble getting along with them (I am generally able to get along with anyone), fitting in was something else entirely.

Abigail: The main things I remember from that first evening of Joe's visit are the way he and my dad talked for about 3 hours after supper, about all kinds of science and Bible topics...and the way I felt as I did dishes and listened in on their conversation. Despite his very understandable nervousness, Joe was calm and collected, seemingly at ease. And he was already fitting in to our family a lot better than I'd anticipated. As I continued to observe him closely throughout the course of the weekend, I was very impressed with everything I saw. 

We enjoyed several hilarious evenings of games with my siblings, a good time of fellowship on Sunday, chilly walks in the snow, and a record-breaking one-on-one conversation that lasted about 11 hours with only a short break for supper (anyone who knows how quiet I am will understand how significant that was for me!). I also was especially appreciative of Joe's thoughtfulness in enthusiastically attending the Messiah concert Rachel and I sang in that Sunday evening - despite the fact that it's not his favorite type of music and he was pretty sleepy by then. As we walked out to our car after the concert, we were greeting with a beautiful fresh snowfall, the perfect flakes still falling gently like glitter from heaven. It was a magical moment and I found myself especially glad to have Joe there to share it with me. I still had no idea what God might have planned for our relationship, but I was beginning to wonder if He could have something up His sleeve after all. :)

Joe:  In the three weeks between meeting Abi in Westby and visiting her at her house this first time, I mentioned the possibility of a road trip to WI to visit some of my friends and family toward the end of January.  I didn't want to push it, but I was supposed to have vacation requests in at work less than a week after visiting Abi.  I was more than willing to wait until after meeting her family for her to make a decision.

I enjoyed the December visit quite a bit, and was able to relax after a short time.  It was a fairly quiet visit overall, but that was quite all right.  Having such a long one-on-one conversation with Abi was very special, and even though I had been thinking things might go in a more serious direction from early on in our communication, it was very reassuring to me.

I had arrived on a Saturday and didn't leave until about noon on Tuesday.  All Tuesday morning I was trying to think of a way to bring up the subject of the January trip, but was coming up short.  Abi actually saved my the trouble by bringing it up an hour or so before I had to leave.  That was also reassuring.  I figured that since she had brought it up, she must have felt ready to begin pursuing something a bit more serious.  With dates in mind for January, I said my goodbyes and made my way back home.

Abigail: The next 8 weeks formed a very important phase of our relationship. Our schedules made it such that we weren't able to see each other in person during that time, so we focused on getting to know each other better through emails, chatting several times a week or so, a few regular mail letters, and (after the first of the year) weekly phone calls, each 2-4 hours in length. As we gradually shared more with each other, I was increasingly impressed with Joe's honesty and humility. We were keeping our relationship on a friendship basis, yet we both knew we were heading towards marriage if God continued to lead that way.

And then, almost before I knew it, the 8 weeks had passed and Susanna and I were getting ready to travel up to MN to meet Joe and drive to WI to meet some of his friends and family. Now it was my turn to be extra nervous. ;) For all of our communication, Joe and I had only seen each other in person twice...and now we were planning to spend 5 days together. I knew it would be a chance to learn a lot more about each other, and I prayed God would help us to know His will more clearly.

Joe:  One of the things Abi and I started doing was memorizing Scripture together.  This made weekly phone calls much more necessary, though I really didn't feel like I needed an excuse to want to talk to her so much.  ;)  As 2010 was fast approaching, we also began tossing ideas back and forth for daily Bible reading plans.  I had been rather lax for several years in making it a habit, and I was glad for the accountability.  Beyond that, though, the vast amount of written communication we exchanged really helped me get to know Abi better, and I continued to be more sure that God really had something special planned for us.

The trip to WI was a lot of fun.  It started with a mid-afternoon lunch at Zorba's Greek Restaurant in Rochester where we met up with my dad, step-mom (Roni), and sister (Sarah).  Sarah was flying back to Germany the next morning, and my dad and Roni were taking her to the Cities.  We had a nice meal and conversation, and then headed out of town to visit my friends, the Chaffeys.  Abi was already a little familiar with them, having contacted Tim via e-mail to get a little background on me a few weeks before we met, and talking with Casey on the phone.  We spent Wednesday and Thursday nights at their house, and Thursday evening we went to Janesville, WI for dinner at Texas Roadhouse, then dropped down to Rockford, IL to visit with Andy and Anne Wallman, friends of mine and the Chaffeys.

Friday we headed back up to the La Crosse area to stay at my dad and Roni's house in West Salem.  Dad was home when we arrived and we had a good time of conversation with him.  Roni got home from work a few hours later, but had to leave again for a couple of hours for a coworker's birthday party.  While she was gone, Abi, Susanna and I taught Dad how to play Dutch Blitz, and Roni took over for him when she got back.  Part of the evening was also spent going through several photo albums. 

Saturday we spent the day at my mom's house.  My grandparents were there, too, and we went through more pictures and had a fairly laid-back day.  My mom was moving soon, so it was nice to have this chance to get together.

Sunday we went to church with Dad and Roni at my home church.  I was able to introduce Abi to several of my friends from there.  There was a potluck after the service, and Abi and I were able to chat with a few people I knew as well as spend a bit more time together.  After the potluck was over, though, we needed to head back to Rochester as I had to work that night and needed to take a nap.

Abigail: I ended up really enjoying our entire trip. Everyone we spent time with was very kind and friendly, and I quickly felt surprisingly "at home". Of course it helped a lot having Joe there the whole time, too. :) I was very thankful for the opportunity to observe him on his own turf, so to speak, with people he'd known for many years or his whole life. It confirmed to me that yes, he really is the same guy I'd been getting to know: no facades! Joe and I had the chance for several very good conversations, and I was amazed at how easily we could communicate and how comfortable we already felt with each other.

The five days passed very quickly and I was sad to say goodbye. Going back to long-distance communication after the luxury of face-to-face was not the easiest, but Joe was already planning his next trip down here in three weeks. Yay! Now, if I could just manage to evade the flu which was going around in my family... 

Joe:  I felt incredibly blessed to be able to see Abi again so soon after the WI trip, especially since there had been an 8-week gap before the WI trip.  I was eagerly looking forward to making the drive down, though we were both a little nervous with the flu making quite a pass through her family.  The day before I was supposed to go down, Abi started feeling under the weather, and I wondered if we would have to cancel.  I had taken that night off from work and we chatted around midnight.  She wasn't feeling the full force of sickness, so we decided that I should call her in the morning to see if she was feeling well enough for me to make the trip.  Thankfully she wasn't feeling so bad that she would have needed to stay in bed all day, so I decided to risk going.

I'm glad I made that decision.  While the entire weekend we spent most of our time quietly inside, Saturday Abi was feeling considerably better, though not quite 100%.  We played a few games of Scrabble, and had a good amount of conversation.

After church on Sunday we got our first posed picture together, and looking back it was *incredibly* awkward.  She and I were both thinking it would be nice to have one, but neither of us wanted to say anything for fear that the other would think we were being presumptuous or something, so it was a welcome relief for Susanna to offer to take one of us.  It was funny, too, because the clothes Abi and I were wearing were matched quite well.

Abigail: Joe wasn't busy the following weekend (the last weekend in February), so at the last minute we decided to plan a day trip on Saturday to meet each other in Mason City - roughly halfway between our places. Lydia went along for the ride, and we ended up having so much fun together. After wandering around the mall and a few other stores for a while, we went "kiwi hunting" at Walmart (long story, but HSA friends will understand the significance of kiwi, lol). Unfortunately our hunt was unsuccessful, so we posed with fake sad faces by the empty kiwi bin before dashing out of the store smothering our laughter. :D The rest of the afternoon we spent in the car: reciting and discussing our memory verses, reading silly stories aloud, and just talking and talking... :)

A meal at Perkins rounded out the day, and as we said goodbye and went our separate ways I knew something special had happened in my heart. It wasn't anything big that had been said or done, but just a clear realization that Joe was quickly becoming one of my best friends...and that I'd be hard pressed to meet any guy with whom I'd feel more comfortable. And how many other guys would have so much fun doing almost nothing with me all day, able to be completely serious at times as well as thoroughly "getting" my off-beat sense of humor? I wasn't completely won over yet (yes, I was very wary and slow), but I was starting to be cautiously excited about what God might have in store for us.

Joe:  Part of the impromptu nature of our trip to Mason City was that I had left a pair of shoes at Abi's house.  We had a good time joking about how they might get lonely and Abi would need to take care of them for me.

As Abi said, there wasn't anything especially big about our day in Mason City.  It was a real treat to get to see her two weekends in a row like this.  As time continued to pass, I was more and more glad to get an e-mail from her each day, talk to her on the phone each week, and see her when it was possible.

We didn't get together for four more weeks after Mason City, and in that time we started seriously discussing making our relationship official.  On Thursday, March 25th, I went down to spend three nights at her house.  On Friday I began talking with her dad, going over some things that were especially dear to his heart, but our conversation was cut short (after three hours!) when Abi's brother Joseph arrived from Arkansas with his wife, Ami, and daughter, Ruby.  Abi's dad and I picked up our conversation on Saturday.  After we had talked for five hours, we got around to me asking him for his blessing to officially court Abi, and an hour later I had my answer...I think.  ;)  Abi's dad and I communicate in different ways, and from my perspective I hadn't been given a clear "Yes," and I mentioned that to Abi as she, Joseph, Ami and I stayed up chatting after everyone else had gone to bed.  Abi told her dad the next morning at breakfast that I wasn't totally sure what his answer had been, and when we pulled into the church parking lot he told me directly that it was okay.  Whew!

After church we went back to the farm for lunch, and I was sad to have to leave.  Abi and I had briefly discussed the issue of physical contact in January, but since we hadn't revisited the topic, I contented myself with our usual goodbye handshake, even though I really wanted to give her a hug as I left.  The next three weeks passed somewhat slowly, even though I kept myself busy, even managing a trip to see some friends in Eau Claire.

Abigail: Our communications through the month of March continued to confirm to me that Joe really was a pretty special guy, and one I would be honored to seriously consider as a future husband. When Joe mentioned the possibility of transitioning into a more "official" courtship, I agreed that the timing seemed right. I greatly appreciated Joe's desire to honor my dad by asking his blessing, and - based on several conversations we'd had - I was pretty sure that my dad would be favorable. 

So Joe came down to visit that last weekend of March, and we had a lot of fun spending time with Joseph, Ami, and Ruby. I didn't sit in on my dad's interrogation of Joe...and though I wasn't really nervous that my dad would say "no," those 9 hours sure did seem extremely l-o-n-g. :) 

It was strange, though, because even though we were suddenly "officially" courting, nothing had really changed. We'd already been seriously pursuing a marriage-oriented friendship for 6 months, and to have an official label on it didn't really make any difference. I found myself shrugging my shoulders more than feeling any special excitement. "Okay, we're courting now. That's nice..." 

But the excitement definitely kicked in for real a few days later when we announced our relationship online. We decided to make it "Facebook official" on April 1, as a sort of quirky joke: a true announcement on a day when everyone would wonder if it was a prank or not. ;) We had a great deal of fun with that, and it was very special to have all our friends rallying around with congratulations. It was then that I finally "caught up" emotionally. "We're courting? For real?!? YAY!!" :D

The next few weeks were a lot of fun as we added more romantic aspects into our communication and talked over more in-depth issues. Several times I just had to stop and marvel that courtship could be so much fun - I'd never imagined that I could so thoroughly enjoy spending that much time talking with a  guy, or that we would be able to so easily communicate on any issue. I felt very blessed indeed, and eager to see what God had in store next.

Joe:  I saw Abi 3 weeks after we started courting, and again 3 weeks later.  It was great to see her a little more frequently, and I became more and more certain that our relationship would continue to progress.  After seeing her the second weekend in May, one of her friends made a comment on the picture of us that we had taken.  We had dutifully kept a little bit of physical space between us as we sat on the porch swing, and her friend mentioned that she had had a frustrating experience before getting married because she and her now-husband didn't have any sort of physical contact.  I mentioned this in one of my e-mails to Abi and we started discussing what we thought would be acceptable levels of physical contact before we got married (I know, it sounds so clinical :P ).  We came up with a pretty short list and decided that it would be more special to save our list until after we'd gotten engaged.  I found it very helpful to go over this so we would have specific standards set up before we got to the point of incorporating anything physical in our relationship so we wouldn't end up doing something we'd regret.

Abigail: I was (and am) very grateful for the way Joe directly brought up issues like this and led us in prayerful discussions to clear decisions. As the weeks of our courtship passed, we learned a lot about the whole process of making decisions together and communicating more deeply...and I was increasingly amazed at Joe's heart for God and his ability to wisely handle any situation. He's even able to be calm, thoughtful, and fun when he's running on basically no sleep: very impressive. :)

We were blessed to be able to see each other pretty much every third weekend through April and May, and each visit we was more special and more enjoyable. We made time for hiking, grilling, card games, photography, Scripture memory recitation, and a lot more - plus plenty of good discussions, of course. :D It was a very happy time, unmarred by anything stressful or confusing.

Joe: At the end of May Abi and Susanna came up for several days.  On Wednesday, May 26th, we headed to WI to spend three nights at my dad's house and three nights in the Black River Falls area.  This was the longest amount of time we'd spent together, and it was a very enjoyable trip.  I was able to introduce Abi to several of my friends (the Killoughs, Zylstras, Schmids, Matthews, and Clipners).  Not only was this trip a lot of fun for me, it also helped clarify a lot of things in my mind.  One thing that really stuck out to me was how the Matthews' son Jonathan warmed right up to Abi and even fell asleep cuddled next to her.  I already knew that I loved her, but seeing her looking so motherly ended up being the last thing I needed to see - now I was absolutely sure that I wanted to marry her.

We got back to Rochester on Tuesday, June 1st, and after taking pictures of each other with our cell phones, it was time for Abi and Susanna to return home.  I went back down to see her that Friday (June 4th), and during the days between visits we began talking more seriously and decided the time was right for me to ask her dad to marry her.

Abigail: The trip up to MN and WI was a big deal for me. I was eager to see Joe again, of course, but was also nervous about meeting so many more of his friends and relatives. New situations aren't my favorite thing anyway, and to think of being closely observed and interrogated for a whole week was a bit overwhelming. Of course I worried needlessly, and though it certainly was a tiring week everyone was very kind and welcoming, and I never felt too much in the spotlight. As with my other trip up there, it was very good to see Joe with these people he's known for so many years. It was definitely fun to finally be able to meet folks I'd been hearing so much about, and be able to put more names and faces together.

Spending that much time together did clarify a lot for both of us, and we began to seriously look forward to the possibility of becoming engaged quite soon, should God open that door.