Meet the Turner's

The Turner’s Est. July 21, 2012

 It was a marvelous springtime with flowers galore. 

When Lauren met Michael right outside her door. 

Building 26 altered lives for these two. 

It is where their love story began and also where it grew. 

On a fine, memorable September day, 

History for these two folks was finally made. 

For outside the place where they first met, 

Michael’s proposal was thoughtfully set. 

With love, devotion, and trust in God,

 A groom will kiss his bride, in which all will applaud.  
July twenty-first, two-thousand-and-twelve. 
A date to remember that will surely be swell!

(Beautifully written by Brittnie Partin)

 The proposal took place at their old apartments where they first met, with Charlie carrying the ring around his neck and a friend of Michael's snapping pictures of the event.

Sometimes love comes along when we least expect it. For Lauren it came at a time when she was doing some serious soul searching and trying to focus on her spiritual life and relationship with God.

Michael was her neighbor. Their apartments were both at the end of their building, so their doors were on opposite sides of the building but their apt. walls were back to back to one another and they were technically neighbors. 

They both had dogs, but Charlie was staying with us at the time because she was working long days in school. According to Michael, he had seen Lauren with Charlie before and was determined to meet her.

So, one day when they were both outside he let go of his dog, Dixie, and she headed towards Lauren. Lauren immediately started petting Dixie and within a few minutes there was some conversation between her and Michael. I remember getting a photo text that night of Dixie and Lauren telling me  that she was dog sitting for her neighbor while he worked a night shift.

Over the next week or so there were a few calls between us when she mentioned she was grilling with her neighbor. When I asked if there was more to this neighbor than just a neighbor, she said no, he was cute and nice but too young and too short for her. (That has since become an inside joke) He's taller than Lauren, and she just meant too short for her typical standards of always dating much taller guys. As far as his age and him being almost two years younger, well, that was a first for her and she was really letting the age thing get to her.  So, I was told that she thought he might have a little crush on her but that she'd made it very clear that she was working on her spiritual self and not interested in getting involved with anyone. So, they continued their neighborly BBQ gatherings for a while. I went for a visit one weekend and met "the neighbor". I thought he was very nice, very handsome and that he definitely had a crush on Lauren, but she insisted that they were just friends for all of the reasons above. 

Shortly after my visit, it seemed that they were spending more time together but I was still being told it was just a neighborly friendship. That all changed one night when they went with some friends to Lake Travis and stayed up all night sitting on the pier by the water talking, for I want to say like 10 or 12 hours just really getting to know each other. It seemed to be the turning point for these two and when they both realized they had feelings for the other.

Michael was easy to like from the beginning and hit it off immediately with our family. He also became the brother that Caden never had and just fit in like a glove.

After Lauren graduated from Texas A&M she moved back home to live while she looked for a job. Michael followed shortly after her. He's from Georgetown but wanted to be near Lauren. The demand for jobs in his field were pretty good in our area and so he quickly landed one nearby.

 He'd started looking at apartments but it wasn't long before he asked Les for Lauren's hand in marriage. Of course, we were both thrilled because the love between these two was undeniable and we had no doubt that they belonged together. So, after the proposal we decided that both Lauren and Michael should just live here to save money. 

So, we had a house full, which included the two of them and all of their college crap for almost a year before they closed on their new house shortly before the wedding.  

Let me introduce you to the neighbors.

They live two doors down from us and we laugh about it all the time. The house wasn't even officially on the market but the neighbors who live next door knew it was going to be and started pushing them to look at it and once they did and liked it, they wrote a long list of pros and cons to living so close to us. Well, they love knowing all of the neighbors and feeling safe, they got a great deal, it's close (walking distance for Lauren) to their jobs and just offered a lot of good reasons to say yes. It sure made for an easy move! On a side note, she is teaching third grade at her old elementary school, which is so cool!

I couldn't have been any happier than I was about the wedding but was having a hard time with the changes that came with it.  I found myself crying into my pillow the night before we were leaving for the out of town wedding and weekend festivities. It was all hitting me hard and it just felt so strange. Her name was going to change. Someone else would be responsible for making any life changing or emergency decisions on her behalf. We would no longer be her emergency contact! We would no longer be considered her "next of kin". And.....How can we be at this point already when it seems like just yesterday that she was learning to walk and talk. I know that all sounds silly, but it was a very sad and weird feeling and I was emotional the entire weekend.


I still can't look at the photos without getting choked up and teary eyed. It was an amazing and beautiful wedding with 200 of our family and friends in attendance. We had a blast! Every little detail that Lauren fretted over and worked so hard on almost solely by herself was absolutely perfect. Right down to the beautiful handmade broach bouquet that was made from a shoe box full of old broaches from my grandmother, a couple from Michael's grandmother and some pieces from my great, great aunt. It was heavy, too! Just ask Cassidy,, who had to hold it during the ceremony.