Pangburn Photography: Blog

Kadie & Joe: A Love Story - Act 3 - Part 1

Ok here we go with part 1 of the third act of out love story. Apparently it takes longer to tell this story than I thought! It took me a little long to get to this one because the day before our anniversary Joey and I decided to take a spur of the moment trip to California to celebrate so I ran around like a crazy woman packing bags of clothes, shopping for supplies and getting things ready to go. We had so much fun! I will make sure and share some photos later this week. But with out further ado, here is the third act of our love story as promised ☺

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It was a cold, windy, spring night, and Kadie sat packed into the small metal bleachers surrounded by parents of the little league baseball kids that were running around the field. Joe was out there too, giving the kids his last minute pep talk before the game. They all stood huddled up in a tight circle, their purple jersey backs clearly visible with their “diamond backs” team logo. Joe clapped his hand loudly and the small huddle exploded into a furry of small running legs as the boys took their positions on the field. This wasn’t the first game Kadie had attended, but she always loved coming and watching Joe coach the boys. It was one of the things she admired about him. He was always so gentle with each of them, yet firm and always made his team behave like gentleman. Umpires would always remark to him how well behaved his team was. She also loved watching him do something he was so passionate about. He loved baseball, and it showed. As she sat and watched the game she began to think about “the list”. She smiled.

It had started out in junior high as a way to safeguard her heart. She had seen her girlfriend’s hearts broken by their boyfriends breaking up with them and she just had no desire to go down that road. So she had made the list, and she had made a promise. The promise was a simple one, but always seemed to puzzle other girls her age. But it made perfect sense to Kadie. Having seen her girlfriends hearts broken she decided that she wanted to have nothing to do with dating until she was at least 18. So she had made a promise to herself not to date until then. But of course making a simple promise to herself did not stop her from having crushes on boys. So she decided the best way to make sure she didn’t fall in love with the wrong person would be to make a list. A list of all the qualities she would want to have in a husband someday.

That’s how it had all begun, with that silly list. Every time she would start to have a crush on a boy she would pull out the list, run down the items and see if they met each one she was looking for. And each time the boy wouldn’t match her list. She knew it would be hard to find this person, her list was almost two pages long after all, but she also knew that God had the perfect man out there for her. The one who would complete her in every way, and she knew he was worth waiting for.

The years passed and Kadie kept true to her promise and never had a single boyfriend, all the while she hung on to her list. Still no boy ever matched it. That is, until she met Joe.

The game was halfway over and the Diamondbacks were winning 4-0. She looked around and saw the glowing smiles on all the faces of the proud parents around her. Her mind began to wander again and she thought about the phone call she had with Joe last night. They had been talking a lot lately, for hours. Last night had been no different. During their conversation Kadie had expertly weaved in questions to ask him about the items on her list. Each time he answered her heart beat faster as he met all the items on her list, except one that she had yet to ask him.

It was a silly question really, she had put it on there at the end as a final silly girly test of fate. You see Kadie liked to eat her hamburgers with French fries on them, and she had never met another person who did this. Of course she knew there must be other people in the world who liked French fries on their hamburgers but she figured the odds of a person doing that AND matching all the other qualities on her list were pretty slim.

They talked a little more on the phone, and Kadie aimlessly wandered around the house working up the courage to ask him the final question on her list. Nervously she sat down on the couch and took in a deep breathe. “Ummm… this is kinda random” she began. “But do you ever put French fries on your hamburgers when you eat them?”. There was a momentary pause on the other end of the line. “That is so weird that you ask that,” Joe said. “I do that almost 75% of the time I eat hamburgers.” Kadie fell off the couch, and dropped the phone. Fumbling she picked it up and began to excitedly talk to Joe again, trying to hide the fact that she had a smile stretching from ear to ear on her face.

As the baseball game was winding down to it’s final inning she thought about her list one last time. It was silly really, a young girls fantasy, waiting for prince charming to appear and be that man of her dreams. She supposed all girls had some sort of a list, maybe not quite as long or as detailed as hers, but at least a mental list of who they wanted to spend the rest of their life with. It seemed like it had to be fate. Meeting the man of her dreams who met every quality on her list, even her goofy elimination question just weeks before her 18th birthday.

Kadie snapped out of her day dream as heard the sound of boys cheering. Joe’s team had won. They all ran around cheering and Joe’s face smiled proudly. He looked over at Kadie through the metal chain link fence that separated the bleachers from the dugout and his eyes twinkled, Kadie’s eyes shone back and it was at that moment she knew she loved him.


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