We all know that good love stories start with a handsome, charming prince sweeping a fair, beautiful maiden off her feet. Our story was no exception. A wink and a smile from across the choir room and Jeremy Dunn possessed my heart. This amazing man met all my very high standards. I was just a sophomore and he a senior in high school.
We started talking here and there, passing notes in the hall between classes, sitting together at lunch and then he eventually asked me to ice cream after our Christmas choir concert. Our first date was spent driving around in his 1989 Ford Taurus listening to the B52’s (Topaz in particular) and grabbing a cone at Baskin Robbins. I wouldn’t call what we had a whirlwind romance but it was six years of dating and developing a deep friendship that would later prove to be what held us together when the going got tough.
When we weren’t together, we were on the phone - dreaming of a house with wall-to-wall red shag carpet, sunken living room, white couches and a white grand piano. We talked about the six kids we would have and how we would travel the world together using music as a vehicle to get there and to minister to the hearts of people everywhere. Paris is where we wanted to head first, with the art, culture, and tons of beautiful people. We were happy to find that many of our values, beliefs and dreams really lined up with each other’s, which was a feat for two old souls that each walked to the beat of their own drum.
Jeremy graduated from high school and headed to university which, lucky for me, was in the same city. We had agreed that we wouldn’t get hitched until he graduated from college. I had two years of high school and I wanted to get some college in too. But believe me, I wanted to be married - Yes, I purchased my dress before he even proposed!
March 1, 1996 he asked! I returned an enthusiastic YES!!! We were married just a few short months later on November 9, 1996 and the next morning we were on a plane headed to Paris for our honeymoon. We got to do all of the really great touristy things and due to Jerm’s great planning we did a lot off of the beaten path. Our food budget was slim so we mostly ate bread, brie and the balcony-chilled wine that our travel agent gave us. Before we knew it, the trip was over and we were packing up to head home. Our last night there we cried together and prayed for the people of Paris. We would be back to Europe soon but under completely different circumstances. That is another story for another time.
When we landed we had the amazing task of opening all of our wedding presents and handing out souvenir gifts from Paris to our families. Amazing because we had been up for 24 hours before he even carried me over the threshold of our sweet two bedroom apartment. We spent the next week setting up our apartment, the first place for either of us had outside our parents homes. Raise the Pressure by Electronic and First Band on the Moon by, a little gem of a band that we found in Paris, called The Cardigans became our soundtrack for this fun, exciting season in life.
We had chosen this apartment because our very best friends Aaron, Jeremy brother, and his wife Michelle lived there. Unbeknownst to us, while we were living it up on our honeymoon - they were placing a down payment on their first house a few miles away. They gently broke the news to us on the way home from the airport. Happy for them, devastated for us - even though it was only a few miles away, it felt like the other side of the city! We had a few months left with them and we made the most of it. When they moved we split our time between their home and ours. We really fell in love with the area, and it wasn’t too long till we found our perfect lot on Abraham Lane in North Phoenix.
It was fun to watch our house go up, and make all the flooring, counter, and cupboard choices. We were just going to be one block away from Aaron and Michelle. We all dreamed about raising our families so close together. Yes, it was all fun until.....
My brother-in-law is a visionary which I have come to view as an endearing trait. He had a vision of two houses right next to each other. Custom houses designed by each couple and built on a large piece of property that their dad had just acquired. One problem - we were already having another house built across town! Aaron drove us all out to the new property, had us figure out our property lines, walk it, imagine it, and dream it. By the end of the evening we were convinced and were all in. We canceled the contract on our “old” new house and we began building our dream home. We would soon find out that dreams and plans are something that should be held to loosely because sometimes life has a way of dictating a different path than the one you had expected.
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