September 2000
They began dating in April 2000. It was every other week or so. Susan had major surgery in May. June brought a family reunion on Kyle's mom's side of the family, the Eldridge side. He invited Susan to go to the reunion with him. She accepted the offer, of course. It seemed like a hundred people to her that got together at Fort Boonesborough in Winchester, Ky. Kyle's aunt, Lillie Newman, was the Manager of the Fort at Ft Boonesborough, his aunt Mallie (one half of the matchmaking pair) was a candlemaker at the fort, and Kyle himself had been employed there as the woodworker for nearly a dozen seasons before he had gotten in at LexisNexis as a technical support person in Dayton. She met many many cousins and their children, many aunts and uncles. Everyone was taking pictures. It was a very enjoyable day. They both had spent the night before and the night of the reunion at Kyle's parents' home outside of Winchester. His mom, Vada, did not approve of premarital relations so they had slept on separate floors in the home. But the supervision stopped there, and Kyle was a very sexy man indeed with ideas of his own. They had sex for the first time in that very basement that weekend. July followed the June Eldridge reunion and every July 4th meant it was time for the yearly Whitaker reunion in Blackey, Ky. So they rented a smaller car and drove to that reunion as well. They stayed overnight at Aunt Frances' house. Frances was Ivan's sister. They all had sat together on Frances' back porch and the ladyfolk decided to go in and fix dumplings and Ivan volunteered Susan to make the dumplings. After all, Vada had shown her how to do that task sometime in the past month. Frances said quietly to Susan, how about I go start the dumplings? Relief and then began a beautiful friendship between Frances, Susan and Roxie, Ivan's youngest sister. This reunion was always held at the "old homeplace" which was where Ivan, Frances, Roxie,Harlin, Charles Lee, Hiram and Jerry had grown up with their parents, Sugar Bill and Maudie Whitaker. It was interesting to say the least driving up the mountain to get to the homeplace, a task which Susan never got used to and was not crazy about attempting to drive it. None of it was paved, half of it not even with any rocks on the road..or rather a path with hair pin turns, deep ravines off both sides of the not even one car width lane. God forbid you come up against someone driving the other direction, somebody had to back up to a wider space, pull off on it and let the other person past. Many nightmares surrounded making that drive. But Kyle absolutely loved going home, so Susan did it many many times over the next 19 years. Summer ended and September finally came. Kyle called Susan on September 21..not unusual, they usually talked every evening after they both got home from work. This particular night, Kyle said he had been having this one song stuck in his brain for days..he thought REO Speedwagon sang it, it went something like "i think i love you". Susan knew the song right away and said, no, the Partridge family sang it. The next night, Kyle called again and again told the story of how that song was just stuck on repeat in his brain. Susan agreed, saying yes it was a really good song. He said, well it's kinda true. She said nothing. He said, you are going to make me say it first aren't you. She said yes i am. so Kyle finally said it "I love you". she began crying and managed to say back "i love you, Kyle". and that was that. it was said. The next weekend she went out and bought her wedding arch, she knew it would be coming at some point.