Is This Burning An Eternal Flame?

Once again, I'm faced with having to boil down in a bite size paragraph or 2 something funny and meaningful about 2 of my favorite people on the planet. *sigh* Lauren & Andy, here's to you: You Rule. This is hands down one of my favorite couples in my life right now, and I'm so blessed to get to run around and take pictures of them. This was my very first Library Shoot! And, this is one of the few couples I have been around for their getting together, their figuring out how to be a couple, their fights, their hilarity, and best of all... watching them work as a team. Andy and Lauren probably love people better together than almost everyone I know. They are so inclusive, so ready to play a game (Ticket To Ride, anyone?) or share a pizza with anyone who's willing, so excited to get to know people ... together.

I would love to tell a story or 2 or 346, but there's just no way to boil down to an anecdote what these people mean to me and the excitement I feel about their upcoming marriage. Ok, ok, I think I may have one. Ha.

Lauren and Andy had just gone on their first date before Lauren's apartment (which is right next to mine) went up in flames. We sat all afternoon and watched it burn, except for my solo field trip to go buy Lauren some underwear and a phone charger, watched everything burned to ashes right before our very eyes. Her clothes, her bed, her movies, Ling Ling (her famous panda bear), everything! Somewhere in the middle of all that, she called Andy and let him in on everything. He said he'd come down and visit the next day and told her "I'm excited to come there and be your friend." WHAT??! "I know he didn't say the F word to you, Lauren," I said when she told me. "I can't believe he'd say 'friend' after everything." (they had had a small fiasco with figuring out whether they were more than friends or not, and we thought they were past that part!) And that night, talking to Lauren in my room was when I realized just how crazy we women are. I always had my suspicions, but this conversation confirmed it all. Here lies Lauren, after the burning of her house and her losing all her worldly goods. Who will have to deal with insurance companies and going through incinerated belongings in the next few days. Who is homeless. Who has 1 pack of underwear to her name. But what came out of her mouth to me that night? "Why did he call me friend!???!!" And all of us women know exactly what that's like!

Ha. And while that fire was big enough to demolish Lauren's entire apartment and all her possessions, it was a mere spark in the relationship between her and Andy. He did come down to visit. He was a good friend. And then he asked her to be his girlfriend, which is ... another funny story :) And the rest, as they say, is history.

p.s. - the 2 photos at the end are part of an homage to AwkwardFamilyPhotos.com. Check it out and be amazed :)