Who I Am #4

the dave and mandy story: part one

i was mr. bouchers teachers aid for his freshman civics class.  i was a sophmore and so, of course, i paid hardly any attention to the younger "kids" coming in and out of his classroom each day.  that is until us sophmores had our midevil festival and had to come dressed in costume.  i was a bit embarrassed to be a t. a. on this day, walking into a room full of kids dressed in normal clothes, while i was in full "fair maiden" garb.  i walk in and mr. boucher asks loudly "well, what have we have here?".  i try to sound confident and respond with "i'm supposed to be a fair maiden".  the words haven't even finished coming out of my mouth when some blonde kid stands up in a knight costume and says "i rescue fair maidens". 

Those were the first words David Houle ever said to me (he just happened to be a sophomore taking a freshman class because he was a transfer student and needed the credit).

I noticed him more after that. At lunch, in chapel (oh look, that blonde kid’s a drummer!), wait a sec, he’s in my Bible class!?!
He was magnetic in school, people were drawn to him, he had a big heart and was so friendly. You instantly liked him and felt comfortable around him.

We became fast friends when we started attending a weekly Bible study at Curtis Shockey’s house. We both signed up for the trip to go build a house in mexico the summer before our junior year.



Emotions run high on missions trips. He led us in worship with his guitar, we talked freely about our evening’s devotions and took pictures of each other with the adorable kids who played with us as we mixed cement and hammered nails. We left Juarez close friends.

Our junior year was spent leading prayse rallies, wasting time at pikes perk and convincing him to take me to soccer practice every afternoon the fall before I got my license.





I was actually “dating” another guy at the time and it took me awhile to realize that david houle was morphing into more than just my friend.




I’ll never forget the night he asked me to be his girlfriend. It was march of 98 and we were on spring break. He was in iowa with his sister and I was at my grandparents house. I snuck into my grandpas office and crouched underneath his desk and we talked for nearly 2 hours. From that night until we graduated from high school we were inseparable.

Banquets and ball hawking (dave lived on a golf course and in the evenings, we would walk out to the ponds on the course and throw this metal basket into the water hoping to catch lost balls.  Dave would then clean them and sell them in his backyard to golfers as they passed by.  Ha!) 

he came to golden bell and up to the mountains with my family, I went to his sister’s wedding. 

We skied together.  He came to all my soccer games.  i went to all of his track meets.  I was 17 years old and couldn’t imagine being with anyone else. 

i left for college the fall of 99 and we began our 4 year long long distance relationship.  ugh...