Cheri and I met around 12 years ago (back in 1992), when Cheri came over to Scotland with a church youth group form Louisville, and attended a youth camp where I was a camper at a centre near Glasgow airport. We were there for two weeks, and we got on great, but being pretty young, and not looking for anything serious, the friendship was maintained only be very sporadic letters.
Then, in 1997, I was over visiting friends in Forth Worth, Texas, and I popped up to Louisville (on the Greyhound bus - a fun journey!), to see some other frinds who had been over with the same group Cheri was in. I had thought Cheri was away in Florida for college, but lo and behold, she was there in Louisville for a college break, and I ended up spending most of the two short days that I had in Louisville with her, going to the zoo, sitting chatting on the swings, and things like that. But, after leaving, the contact again became sporadic, and the friendship was maintained only by the odd letter.
The 2001, Cheri came back to Scotland, this time as a camp coulselor. As it happend, I was still at the camps, as a counselor too, and we got on great. Both being a little older (mid-20s), we were thinking about something more serious, but after spending a few days in London between camps, Cheri had to leave back for Lousville. I flew out about a month later (9 days after Sept. 11th), and spent three wonderful weeks with Cheri, and we kept up contact rather more than sporadically! We started dating officially on Jan 22nd, 2002, while taking down Cheri's Christmas tree (my second visit), and there have been three visits since, including a wonderful camping trip with her family in the Smoky Mountains. We got engaged 15th November 2003, and made it through TSC in pretty quick time. At present, it's a couple of weeks before Cheri comes over to Scotland for a month, and we go to the interview in London together : )
