Our First Date

Laura, over at Storybook Reality is hosting her first blog link-up today. In honor of Valentine's day, she is asking us share about first dates. I guess I better join in, because if it wasn't for Laura, I might not have met Kyle!

After graduating from Georgetown College in 2004, I stayed on campus that summer as a summer school RA. It was a pretty boring job and I felt very lonely. By this point, Laura was already living in Charleston. After talking to her on the phone one day and telling her I was bored, she recommended I check out the post-college Bible study at Southland Christian Church called The Space Between. I did check it out and ended up attending each week. Even though Kyle was also attending the Bible study, we didn't meet until a group of us from the study met at church on a Saturday to help clean. After that, Kyle and I would talk on Thursdays and he asked me for my phone number and then called to ask me to dinner.

I remember a lot about our first date. I still remember what I wore (but I don't remember what he wore). I met Kyle at the house he shared with three other guys. Before we left the house, we sat at the piano. Kyle played the song "Lord of the Dance" and I sang it. I don't really remember why that happened, but it did. We then went out to his car. He opened my door for me and I noticed his car didn't have automatic locks, so as he walked around to his side of the car, I leaned over and unlocked his door. (He would later tell me that I passed that test by doing that).

We then drove to the restaurant. He wouldn't tell me where we were going. On the way there, he received a phone call. It was from his best friend's mom, Mrs. Hamilton. He answered the phone and it was pretty funny because he told her he was on a date, but wouldn't say out loud where we were going. We then arrived at our location; Bistro 147. It was a small restaurant and pretty fancy inside. I remember when we walked in the door, we were greeted by a host who said, "Mr. Calton?" I think they assumed it was him based on the time of the reservation he had made, but it made me feel like he was famous or something. Our table was right in the front window overlooking a fountain. I remember once our food came, we were both enjoying our meals. Kyle asked if I wanted to try a bite of his. I didn't know if I was supposed to take a bite off his fork or use my fork to try a bite. I mean, this was a first date. I ended up taking a little bite off his fork, which he seemed fine with.

It was a very nice first date. I really liked him.  Kyle has told me since then that he wasn't sure if he'd asked me out again because I had such a thick country accent. Ha! I'm glad he was able to get past that!

This is the oldest picture I could find of us on my computer. It is from November.