Fairytale, Chapter 6: Our First Summer

To catch up on the rest of the story, go to our fairytale page. It's hard to know where to take the story from here. You've heard the struggle I went through to get her to date me, but from this point on me and Kels were like peas and carrots.

After our first date--and Kels definitely wanting to be my girlfriend--she headed to Okoboji for the summer. (For those unfamiliar with Iowa, Okoboji is a beautiful clear water lake in Northwest Iowa--one of three bluewater lakes in the world--pretty much our only "resort" town.) Her grandparents have a house near the lake and their family spends time there in the summer. Kels was going to live there and work at Godfather's for the summer. Her sister was also living there at the time working as a waitress and tutor.

Meanwhile, I continued working (for the weekends) construction in Belmond, and we would visit each other every weekend. Most of the time I would drive to Okoboji and we would enjoy the town. I think I spent all my summer money on restaurants, but it was totally worth it.

After dating for a couple weeks, I knew Kelsey would be the girl I would marry. I can't explain the feeling, but I just knew. It was a feeling inside that gave me such peace. After another couple weeks, I told her that I loved her (I know it was soon, but I felt it). She said, "Thank you."

I was totally OK with this. I think I had actually been in love with her since chapter 2. I understood fully that it might take her a while to actually love me, and I was thankful that she didn't say the big "L" word without meaning it.

She did think about it overnight and the next day she held my face in her hands, looked me in the eye and told me she loved me. (Insert tears of joy.)

For the rest of the summer, we spent our weeknights talking on the phone, getting to know each other as best we could, and visiting each other on the weekends. We were both 19 at the time, and I'm not going to pretend that we didn't have hormones. It was hard to keep our hands off of each other, but we did make the conscious decision to wait until we were married to have sex.

Our love grew. We cherished the moments we had together that summer, and, when we look back now, when we think of Okoboji, we think of the place we fell in love.

When summer came to an end, we were headed back to NIACC...