Happily Ever After

Nine years ago, I was agonizing at the end of my senior year because no one had asked me yet to go to our banquet (read: Low-key prom for Mennonites). Well, I had been asked but regretfully had to decline because the guy in question was not exactly my type. :)

It was only three weeks before Banquet and I was the only one not asked out of all the girls in our class. ALL OF THEM!! Finally, this cute guy I've known since middle school but paid little attention to until senior year asked me! I found out later that he had thought it funny to wait as long as possible and had warned other guys in the class not to ask me because he was "eventually" going to do it.



Can you tell this is a story I still hold over his head?

Mal & Drew -- 2005

After that night, the rest is history. Only a few months remained before we both went to separate colleges in Kansas and Texas. Six weeks before we left, he asked me out on a date to go putt putt golfing. I probably lost the game, like any other game we play, but we ended up catching fireflies on the way and naming one Freddy, and staying up until wee hours of the morning talking on my parents porch swing -- a place that would get a lot of action in the next few weeks.

After the first date, I was hooked and giddy. My mom loves to tell the story that I ran upstairs after that first night to tell her how funny Drew was and that he held my hand. By the third date, I had to tell him to just go ahead and kiss me while waiting in awkwardness on my front porch as he dropped me off....another story that will never die.

We spent two years doing the long-distance dating thing and countless seven-hour road trips between Hesston, Kansas, and Abilene, Texas, as well as countless speeding tickets. What can I say, there is not a lot on the long trip but flat roads, fast speed limits and wild boars...another story for another time.


After graduating from Hesston in 2005, Drew transferred to ACU for his last two years to be with me. It was also the summer we got engaged on the beach, and the whirlwind summer we planned a wedding before we returned to Abilene for our junior year of college.

One of our engagement pictures

Drew surprised me at night on the beach our last night on vacation by writing Will You Marry Me in the sand

Happy couple the next morning

It was also the summer Drew took me on a hot air balloon ride to fulfill a dream of mine where we ended up landing, believe it or not, in the field of a midget Amish family. You just can't make this stuff up.

Up in the hot air balloon

After we'd landed in the midget Amish farm

 We had the perfect wedding day six years ago. It was sunny, warm and all our friends and family were surrounding us as we set out on a journey, which we had no idea what it would have in store for us. We left way too early the next morning for an amazing Caribbean cruise. Every year, we lament that we should be on a cruise again, but alas, life intervenes.

At our reception

Wedding party

On our early morning flight to Ft. Lauderdale

At our fancy dinner on the cruise

We returned to Abilene to live that first, hot, hot summer where our cute little rent house had literally no insulation and a $500 energy bill when we kept the air set at 85 degrees. We picked up a dog later that summer from friends that needed a home, despite the no-dog rule at our house and thoroughly enjoyed the first year of marriage and all the changes that year brought with graduating from college, planning to move back to Ohio and trying to get into grad school.

2006

2007 -- First Anniversary trip to San Antonio

2008

2009

2010

Drew was accepted into Walsh University to complete his doctorate of Physical Therapy -- thankfully only an hour from where our families lived in Ohio. We temporarily moved into the basement of his parent's home -- or so we thought -- until Emery, our sweet little surprise came -- changing our plans. We were so blessed to be able to live with Drew's parents in our own separate home in the basement while raising Emery, working and Drew finished school.

2011

Eighteen months later we moved to Fayetteville, North Carolina, to begin a short, new adventure on our own in a large and strange city while Drew finished his last internship before graduating. He was offered a job at the end of his internship for the same company but in Winston-Salem. We began to move home for six weeks before packing back up and beginning a new chapter in our lives in North Carolina.

Cohen joined our family five months after our move on a warm November day growing our family from two to four.

I give you a brief history of our lives to say that six years ago, I had no idea what to expect when I said I do. On our anniversary date night last night, we both agreed that while, not what we expected necessarily, we have really, really enjoyed the last six years and think that what we've been given and blessed with, is probably even more and better than we could have imagined as we stood in front of the church picturing our lives ahead.

Here are our vows we wrote to each other:

I, Mallory, take you Drew, to be my husband. You are my best friend, my confidant, my love. Today I marry you and begin the happily ever after I've always dreamed about. I want to grow old with you, have children that inherit your smile and spend every day enjoying life with you. Today I make this pledge: I promise to love you, cherish you, honor you, defend you, laugh with you, cry with you and be faithful to you from this day until the tomorrows end.

I, Drew, take you Mallory, to be my wife. You are my soul mate, my best friend, my everything. Today I marry you and begin a lifetime with you by my side. I want to always support you, wake up with you each morning and see the world with you. Today I make this pledge: I promise to love you, cherish you, honor you, defend you, laugh with you, cry with you and be faithful to you from this day until the tomorrows end.

2012

Here's to 100 more anniversaries with the man that still makes my heart beat fast, who still takes me out on dates, and still tries to flirt with me with terrible pick-up lines. Happy Anniversary Drew!

Over and out --