Josiah lived in a camper in their backyard.

He was also their employee. And their tenant. And the young man trying to marry their oldest daughter. Every other day Daniel and I changed our minds about what the rules were. You can't go into that room. Wait, no. You can go in that room, but not that one.

It was our first time walking a child through courtship. We did not have it figured out.

In Part 2, MaKenna and Josiah finish the story. The setup that brought Josiah from the bus to the backyard. Why Daniel liked him from day one, even when I didn't understand it. The five dates they had alone in a year and a half of courtship. The friend who sat MaKenna down and told her what she was about to settle for. The first kiss they saved for the wedding.

Then what they built. An Airstream on family land, bought with swim money. A pole barn that was their wedding venue and then their first home. A house going up debt-free, now worth around $600,000, with about $300,000 into it. Josiah doing most of the work himself, trading cabinet-building skills for crane time, calling in the family for the days the load was too heavy.

And what MaKenna says now about the childhood people told her she was robbed of.

"I'm going to do the same thing with my children. So I don't think my childhood was robbed in any way. That was the number one thing people told me. And it was a lie I believed for a long time."