Kimm's Korner: Show & Tell Tuesday

Happy Tuesday Girls!

Today I am linking up with Andrea for "Show & Tell Tuesday", be sure to grab the graphic and link up too!!

So today we are all telling how we met our mates and how we got engaged! I am looking forward to reading everyones!

Let me start by saying I don't have any glamorous or super romantic story...but I still think it is pretty perfect and super special! Shortly after I was separated my girlfriends were all over me about getting out and trying to meet someone..the thought of it seriously made me panic! I mean 34 years old, 5 kids, first of all who even has time to go out and meet someone, and who the heck would even want to meet some lady with 5 kids! I brushed them off for months and told them I was fine being alone! And I really was OK with being alone, I had my kids, we were happy, life was pretty good. Of course I was lonely at times, and wished I had a partner here to share life with it, but I knew I was totally not into any type of dating scene, and the last thing I felt like doing was going out on dates!

Well, after weeks of NON-STOP pestering I gave in and said I would go on ONE date..it was more just to shut them up! Ha!

So one cold Monday December night, I set out to meet this guy that my girlfriends were setting me up with. I can remember driving there with a huge knot in my stomach, I seriously could not remember a time when I was ever that nervous..I definitely thought about turning around and just going home quite a few times! Well, let's just say I am really glad I did not. I walked in, found Mark, and we seriously just hit it off....we sat and talked for hours, it was easy and comfortable! We had dinner again the very next night, and well the rest is history!!!!

We really hit it off on the very first night. As I have written about before, he wasn't even remotely phased about the fact that I had 5 kids...it was pretty much love at first sight for both of us!

I knew pretty quickly that he was the one, I had no desire to go and meet other people, date anyone else, yes I realize how lucky I was to have found exactly what I needed right away!

I was very concerned about introducing him to my children, I knew what a wonderful man he was, but I had a huge fear that if god forbid it did not work out, I would hate to put my children through that...so so tough when you are a parent! I really felt in my heart he was the "one" and I knew the only way to see if it was going to work was to let him meet my children. Obviously my kids needed to be OK with him, and it was very important that he saw me as a mom...because that is what I am first and foremost..my kids will always always be my TOP priority!

I was crazy nervous introducing them all, but it really went so smooth...Olivia was not even 2, so she just kinda went with it, the little boys just loved him, Mark wasted no time getting right down playing with them. Brooke and Harrison were a bit older and they really seemed to hit it off with him too! You can imagine how super happy I was after that!

I got A LOT of opinions once I let people know I was involved with someone, funny how everyone seems to know what's right for you!!! I was 34, Mark was 39, we were both responsible adults, very capable of making decisions, and we did move rather quickly, it was not long after we met that he moved in with us. For us, we just knew it was right, we were very happy, and very anxious to start our life together!

About a year or so in, we started talking about the possibility of getting married, I really did not need a piece of paper to validate our relationship, however we both thought it was important, because there were children involved, that if we were going to be together, to commit fully and get married. There was no special proposal, we talked about it, looked at lots of engagement rings, and well a few weeks later we were "engaged"!

Obviously this being a second marriage for both of us, there was not going to be some big grand wedding, we had both already been there and done that! Our first thought was go to Vegas and just get married, we were definitely liking that idea...well the kids...not so much! They were devastated that they couldn't come to our wedding...so we had to rethink things! I loved that my kids wanted to be a part of this, and they did need to be, this was as much about them, as it was about Mark and I. We decided to take a long weekend and head up to Pigeon Forge, TN, rent a cabin, and get married there. It is one of those places, similar to Las Vegas, where you can go get a marriage license and go into any chapel and get married. Easy peasy!

As I was looking online for little wedding chapels, I came across a drive-thru wedding chapel, and told the gang about it and they all thought it was the coolest thing ever!!!

We rented the sweetest cabin!

Everyone loved the movie theater room in the cabin!

Everyone just hanging out waiting to go get married!

First stop was getting the marriage license

We are ready to get married!

Cutest little drive-thru chapel ever!

Best thing ever!!

And seriously just like you would drive up and order food at McDonalds, we drove around, the guy stuck his head out of the window and married us...all the kids were in the car with us and it seriously was the most perfect thing ever! The kids were clapping and cheering in the back of the car, I am so glad we did this..it was crazy, fun and just perfect!