Fun in Chicago with the Thackers

Happy Birthday!

The 3 McDonnell's with May birthdays decided to celebrate together! :) Happy Birthday to Molly, Aiden and Mindy!

Kaity, Anna and I 

 We also celebrated Baby Abbie's 1st birthday. She loved the iPad and kept kissing it. :)

Teen group in church a few weeks ago...

A story of love

This is the story of how the Lord led one young man and one young woman together in an amazing and wonderful way.

It was September of 2010 when I first saw Nicole via a Facebook friend's church picture and I immediately was impressed by her sweet countenance.  At that time though, I didn't even know what her name was.  I just knew that she was quite attractive. :o)

On November 3rd of 2010, Nicole commented with a photography related question on my photo blog.  I was shocked when I visited her blog and saw that it was the same young lady that I had seen in one random picture on Facebook.  When I saw that she had a common like of shrimp, gummy bears and Dr. Pepper and I very jokingly said, "I need to meet this girl, lol!"  Little did I know...

If you had told me that in exactly one year, I would be calling her dad and asking his permission to date his daughter, I would have laughed.  

I had my life planned out exactly how I wanted it to go as a boy, but the Lord had other plans for me.  Through godly counsel and a lot of personal growth during the past few years, I realized more and more, that God's ways are always more pleasant and we must be willing to accept his direction.

On March 25, 2011, during an email exchange, much to our amazement, we found out that our moms attended the same small, private, Christian school in Marshalltown, IA at the same time.  How amazingly crazy is that?

We first met in real life on April 23rd at a photographer workshop in Chicago and we had a good time shooting pictures and talking about this, that, and the other throughout the day.  Little did we know at that time that Chicago would be the spot for our first date in exactly 8 months to the day.

We continued to email throughout the spring and summer of 2011 with increasing amounts of conversation about our growing up years and personal interests.  As the days continued to fly by, I started to realize that I looked forward to each email from Nicole with great anticipation. 

Then in the fall of 2011, November 2nd to be exact, after counsel with my parents and a lot of prayer, I realized that the Lord was leading me to take the next step and begin a relationship with this special young lady if she and her parents agreed.  I called Mr. LaBate with a little fear and trepidation in my heart but was relieved when he gave me permission to get to know his daughter better. :o)

On December 23rd, 2011, we had our first official date at "Heaven on Seven" in downtown Chicago. (Excellent southern style food if you get a chance to stop by, the chicken enchiladas are heavenly.  No pun intended. :o)

March 17th of 2012, I was thrilled to be able to tell my Nicole that I loved her, and since then we have continued nourishing our relationship and growing in our love towards one another as we seek the Lord's perfect will together.

Today is special because it marks the six month anniversary of our dating relationship. So we decided to share our story with you, our readers.  To see Nicole's side of the story, you can click here.

I appreciate all the support that our friends and family have given us, and the many years of training that our parents have invested in raising us to serve God with our lives.  I trust that we will never disappoint your many prayers and labors during our childhood.  

So how did I get to date and love such an amazing, wonderful, perfect, beautiful, lovely, feminine, joyful, creative young lady?  I still don't know the answer to that one, but I thank the Lord every day for His great blessing in bringing us together.

We are excited to see what the future holds for us, but our main goal is to serve our Saviour and to honor His name with all that we do.