I have the honor of serving families all the time, and you often see their beautiful, smiling faces here on the blog. What you don't see very often is my face and my growing family's story, and I want to get better about that. To kick off the new year, I wanted to take a few posts to share about my growing family! And what better way to start than at the beginning.

 

 

My sweet husband, Daniel, and I have a very unique story. We grew up together in the same church from the time we were in preschool until his family started attending a new church in middle school…over that time we never met! I'm not quite sure how that happened because we had lots of mutual friends and similar memories of our days in Children's Church at Grace Outreach Center, but none involve each other.

Fast-forward to just after we graduated high school. We were two 18-year-olds, both single as a Pringle, and definitely not looking to mingle! Still attending different churches, we both embarked on an adventure to SLU 201, a leadership conference held in Washington, D.C. I knew his youth pastor and he knew mine, but we still had never met! Somewhere around Day 2 of the conference, my youth pastor said something along the lines of, “Rebecca, you really need to meet Daniel. He has a great vocabulary, just like you!” (Such an odd comparison, lol!) I laughed and rolled my eyes, and we went on with our sight-seeing.

 

 

When we got to the National Archives Building, we had a very long wait to get inside. During that wait, sitting on a ledge minding my own business, our youth pastors introduced Daniel and I for the first time. I thought he was a nice guy, but again – I wasn't looking for any sort of relationship!

 

Side Note: I had never been in a relationship before. I was super picky throughout high school and never found someone to date. Knowing that dating either leads to a breakup or marriage (which I was NOT ready for), I enjoyed that single life.

 

As the day went on, we visited a few other spots. I did find myself looking for Daniel at a couple of spots, but I could never find him! Come to find out, he didn't talk to me much because he couldn't tell my sister and me apart and didn't want to talk to the wrong Scarborough Sister. So funny!!

After one stop in particular, we were all loading onto the bus and I happened to be the last person to get on. As I made my way back to my seat next to who I thought  was the same kid I was sitting next to before, I looked down the isle to find the ONLY empty seat next to…yep, you guessed it! Daniel Rice! Our youth pastors had orchestrated it so we had to sit next to each other. I sat down and awkwardly made conversation that turned into real conversation with a guy who was actually pretty interesting to talk to!

The trip went on and we bumped into each other here and there when our groups were together, but nothing significant happened. Daniel later told me that on his way home, his youth pastor gave him a hard time about not getting my number! He said that I wasn't just girlfriend material, but wife material. Daniel then messaged me on Facebook asking to hang out when we got home (thank goodness for social media). Thus began the adventures of dating Daniel Rice!

 

Our first date – Roughriders Game!

 

 

Study Date! (Well I was studying…he was “fixing” my iTunes library, which apparently was a mess.

 

 

Day trip to the lake! One of our favorite spots.

 

 

Pit-stop in London on the way to Kenya on a missions trip!

 

 

Our first of many putt-putt dates

 

 

Hanging out at the chapel that we knew we'd one day get married at!

 

 

Our first Thanksgiving with our families celebrating together…a sweet tradition we kept once we got married.

 

 

**Stay tuned for Part 2: How He Asked!