Christy and Sam: The Love story - Part 2

If you haven't read part 1 click here so you can get caught up! Ok, now you may continue on. :)

We fell in "like"

Both of us can barely remember when we started liking each other. "It has been coming on so gradually, I hardly know when it began! But I believe I must date it from my first hearing him sing and play the guitar." ;) (Fans of Pride and Prejudice will get that quote, Sam is my Mr. Darcy! And my Shikamaru, oh and my Luke Danes as I've recently been realizing.) But seriously, it probably first started when he went to visit his family in Africa for the holidays in November of 2009. 

We had been working closely together for several months and when he left... I realized pretty quickly that I missed him... like... a lot. He was gone all of November and December. During that time I noticed he was a big reason why interning had been so fun. While he was gone a fellow Tejas SMT and I drew this picture of Sam.

We had way too much fun

Yep, definitely missed him. I confided this information to my mom. I also remember telling her that I felt like I would want to give him a hug when he got back, but I had never given him a hug before... would it be weird? At that point I still thought of him as just a good friend, nothing more. I believe my mom began to suspect a greater attachment than I knew myself. Sam got back at the beginning of the year during our Summer Ministry Team reunion party. There was a bunch of people around him when I said hi and he didn't seem overly excited to see me, so I decided on no hug. (I commented on him barely acknowledging me when he got back much later on and he said he was jet lagged and really out of it and doesn't even remember me saying hi)

The intern buddies!

During the spring internship there were only 3 of us, me, Sam and Beau(our good friend to this day, thanks for being our wing man dude!). Also, I was training to become a full time employee at Camp Tejas. I started working more in the office, but I still was doing some intern stuff with the guys too. During the fall internship we barely spent any of our off time together, not sure why. So why did we become good friends in the spring? Well, here are some of the reasons why.

While I was on Christmas break I purchased myself a nice, big TV, because well, I love movies and video games. :D So one day I suggested we start a weekly dinner/movie night where I would cook the guys dinner and then we would watch a movie or play a video game. We had some good times! We would watch the credits of the movie all the way to the end just to find people with funny names and laugh at them. Sam made us dinner once. Chicken Fried Steak and Mashed Potatoes and it was delicious. I literally kicked Sam off the couch one day during a spirited game of Super Mario Bros. Wii. I also specifically remember a zombie game of ping pong where I laughed the most probably in my life. 

He's cuddling a tiny puppy!!
You can see some of the mats we were cleaning in the background

After each retreat weekend we would do a thorough cleaning of the dining hall. One of the tasks was to spray out and wash the kitchen floor mats. It took two people and most people didn't like to do it. It took a couple hours and it was messy, wet and a lot of times pretty cold outside. But just about every weekend Sam and I would volunteer and do the task together and talk the whole time. We got to know a lot about each other during those times. He called me the golden child and I called him a rebel. Opposites attract right?

Every month the full time staff and interns would have a potluck. After each potluck we would all stick around the dining hall for a while. Sam would play his guitar and sometimes sing for us, while Beau and I would do puzzles.

I have no idea what we were saying.

After one of the potlucks, my boss asked, "Soooo... you and Sam huh?" I said, "What?? Why would you say that?" He said, "I guess because y'all looked all nice and dressed up sitting next to each other last night." (dressed up, meaning wearing something different than a camp shirt and shorts.) I responded. "There's nothing going on, we're just good friends." That was the truth! I promise. Like I said earlier I was not thinking of guys romantically at all.

Taking pictures of each other :)

He's cute

Sometime in February the interns had a few days off together. We took a trip back to my parents house. We played some old atari video games, watched some late night winter olympics(curling to be exact) and went horseback riding. We also all bought toms and wrote Camp Tejas Interns on the back. (Also, I haven't mentioned that my parents were less than thrilled about my first boyfriend, but when my dad met Sam for the first time he burned him an Eagles CD. :D) Sam and I talked the whole way to Kingwood and back. My mom and my dad were not fooled. They knew we liked each other before I even realized it. I was talking to my mom soon after the trip and she commented saying, "Sooo, you and Sam seem pretty close." I said, "Really? You think so?"

The intern toms

Yeah... we're cool. 

Later that month it was Sam's birthday and it snowed. (Bah! Just realized a Gilmore Girls reference here. It's magical when it snows!...and I just got asked by Netflix if I was still watching Gilmore Girls...) We had a snowball fight and made tiny snowmen together. We watched the Wizard of Oz that night. I think it was right around then I finally realized... I think I like Sam... more than a friend. When/how did that happen?? I had been praying for a while for a kindred spirit who lived close to me. I never expected it to be Sam. Sam was talking about me to his mom and she said "Sounds like you found a kindred spirit." There was a time when he would count how many times I shook my head at him and I would count how many times he rolled his eyes at me. And I tried hard to think of inventive ways to get him to say the word cute because he said it wasn't part of his vocabulary. We would even chat on Facebook at night after we had worked together all day... Yeah, there was no avoiding the truth, I was falling for him.

Snowball target!

I don't think I've ever seen flakes so big!

Still one of my favorite pictures of us

I think I only told my mom and my covenant partner at Tejas, Kristi, about my attachment. I remember Kristi commenting and said she had been thinking, "I wonder why Sam has been so happy lately, maybe he's in love with Christy!" I wouldn't let myself believe that because I didn't want to be disappointed if it wasn't true.

During a retreat weekend in early March 2010, Sam, unbeknownst to me, asked for advice from two of our mutual friends that worked the weekend with us, about telling me about his feelings. One of them said "Go for it man, Christy doesn't act like that with anyone else." Sam asked our other friend if she was sure I was over my previous relationship. Once she assured him I was, his mind was made up. He was going to tell me how he felt.

It was Sunday March 7th, 2010 (Here's where every guy is like, "How do women remember these details??") Normally Sam, Beau and I would drive to church in the evening and have some fast food together after. (There was a backflipping burrito one night) Well, Beau had gone home for his next couple of days off. So it was just me and Sam. After church I asked Sam, "Do you still want to get some fast food?" He said something like, "Yeah, we always do don't we?" We went to Whataburger and the whole time we were eating Sam was jittery, didn't say much and didn't even finish his burger. I thought, "He's acting weird... OH! Maybe he does like me and is going to tell me!" He didn't end up saying anything, so we started driving back to Camp. I thought, "I was being silly, I guess he doesn't like me." Then out of nowhere while I was driving down the highway he says, "Ok, here's how it's going to go down, we're going to have an adult conversation." (He knew he needed to clarify this because he wanted to be certain I knew he was serious since we joked around a lot) I said, "Uh... Ok." He continued with, "I think you know what I'm going to tell you. It's pretty obvious.... I've become quite fond of you and I kinda need to know if you feel the same way." I said, "OH!...." I paused and didn't say anything for probably what seemed like an eternity to Sam. I think he said something like, "Well...?" I said, "I don't know..." Still very cool and collected Sam said, "Alright, that's fine." I snapped out of my indecisiveness because I really knew how I felt. I said, "No, I mean I do. I do like you." I think he responded with, "Cool." 

To be concluded...

Proverbs 18:24
A man of too many friends comes to ruin,
But there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.