So last week when we were going around the room telling how we met/our story at our couples small group, I realized that we have been through quite a lot and God has definitely had His hand on our lives. I am also doing Beth Moore's Esther Bible study right now which is all about how moments that seem completely unrelated to anything, have a huge impact on your life path and story looking back. So I figured I would write down the story of how Chris and I came to be as well as how we ended up here in Melbourne, FL. If you had asked either of us if we would ever live anywhere other than an Army post or Virginia we would have thought you had lost your mind! Ha! So here goes, a lot of you already know this, but for some it may be new. :)
I grew up in Stuarts Draft, VA (the middle of mountain country in the Western part of the state). When I was finishing up 8
th grade, my mom received an opportunity to go into management with State Farm in...dun, dun, duh...Richmond, VA. Growing up in Stuarts Draft, all you think of when you hear about Richmond is people getting shot (mainly because that's always on the news). So I was a wee bit nervous moving to this HUGE city (to me). I wanted to be an athletic trainer, so I signed up to do girls basketball. Well in order to do girls basketball, you had to do football because that is when trainers were "trained." :) So, off I went as a 9
th grader not knowing a soul to football practice in August. I learned a few faces in the two weeks before school, but I still didn't really know anyone. So on the first Friday of school (4 days into the school year), I noticed that the JV quarterback (Chris) was riding on my bus to school. Now a little background, football was not the best sport at
Midlothian but I didn't know that! Also most girls at
Midlo used to tease the guys about not winning...again, I didn't know! So I walk up to where he is sitting talking with some other folks and ask "so how did the game go last night?" He looks at me with a snarl and replies "Shut up!" I immediately thought to myself, "Well, he's a jerk!" and made a mental note to avoid talking to him...ever. :) I think that is probably the last time I rode the bus to school as well. I was totally embarrassed.
Well God had other plans. So, throughout football season that year and the next year, Chris kept getting little nagging injuries that required none other than trips to the training room...and me! I still didn't think he was very nice, but I dealt with him. I think my bubbly personality just about drove him nuts. He was also in my 9
th grade science class, but he always made snide remarks my way, so I really thought he was just mean! In 10
th grade we were in two classes together, Math and P.E. For some reason both of the teachers decided it was their job to get us "together." So in Math she strategically placed us next to each other and when she changed our assigned seats (every 4-6 weeks
because we had a talkative class) she always left Chris exactly where he was and moved me around him in a circle. Weird. Our P.E. teacher always found "errands" for us to run to the guidance office or
principal's office which required both of us to go...weird. So by the middle of the year we were pretty good friends and by the end of the year we actually like each other somewhat. Over the summer we spent a lot of time at Salisbury Lake just laying around on the beach and talking about nothing in particular. During this whole time we kept insisting that we were just friends. By September of our Junior year we finally decided we were a couple and started dating. We were pretty much
inseparable after that. I like to think that we kept each other out of trouble as neither of us were into the party scene. We would go to the movies, the mall or hang out at one of our houses, but we were pretty boring compared to most high
schoolers.
Chris left for West Point 10 days after our high school graduation and I waiting all summer before going off to James Madison University for my first year of college. The first year was tough on all fronts as Chris was a Plebe at the Academy, I did not get along with my roommate and I pretty much hated life at
JMU. I would drive up to West Point for long weekends whenever Chris had a pass...which wasn't much, and I would go see him in Richmond when he came home for Holidays, but mainly we communicated through AOL Instant Messenger and occasional phone calls. I finally got smart during my sophomore year and applied for transfer admission to
UVA. I was accepted into the Business school (no small feat!) and my junior year I moved to
Charlottesville. I LOVED my last two years of college, due in large part to finding and joining the Christian choir called
Jubilate. Chris's time got a little better at West Point as he was finally an upperclassmen, but overall it was not a "fun" college experience for him. I graduated from
UVA on May 18
th, 2003 and then headed up to New York for Chris's graduation on May 31, 2003. We jumped into Chris's old Explorer and headed south to Virginia immediately following his graduation. He was DONE with West Point!! :) We were married on June 21, 2003 in
Midlothian and after returning from our honeymoon headed West to Fort Sill, Oklahoma. Chris was in his Explorer and I was in my little Honda Accord and we drove for three days to finally get to Fort Sill. I was there for 6 weeks of his 6 month Officer Basic Course. After 6 weeks I headed back East by myself...a three day drive...by myself...at 22 years old...that scares the heck out of me now! Didn't phase me at the time! Anyway, we moved into our first house in
Fayetteville, NC as soon as I arrived in NC and I started my new job with
PricewaterhouseCoopers in Raleigh two weeks after I arrived from OK. We were living in
Fayetteville...and I was working in Raleigh...and 1 1/2 - 2 hour commute ONE WAY. I was crazy, but didn't know it at the time. I was working between 60 and 120 hour work weeks, and I was all alone in a town where I knew NO ONE. Talk about intimidating!
Chris graduated from Officer Basic and headed East two weeks before Christmas. He got home and immediately got a call from his new unit at Fort Bragg that he had the "option" to deploy with his unit...leaving on January 6
th. WHAT?! He was told that this was a once in a lifetime opportunity and that this would be the last deployment to Iraq, so he would be one of the only 2003 grads to get to go...so he went! What a great opportunity right?! He was gone until mid-April. Again, we were back to communicating via e mail and AOL Instant Messenger (usually at 3am North Carolina time). When he came home, I was smack dab in the middle of an audit on a
restatement (a big deal in the public company world). So I was working average 100-120 hour work weeks and Chris was driving clothes up to me on the weekends. A sad state!
During the time that I was working so much, Chris was also doing a lot of night jumps with his unit. Well he landed on the cement in the middle of the night one too many times and was now out with a back injury. Almost immediately the doctors said " you're going to be medically discharged." NOW WHAT?! We were planning on going back to West Point for Chris to teach...what do you mean a medical discharge?! Definitely NOT in our plan, but definitely in God's plan. :) A normal discharge takes YEARS to get through all of the bureaucracy...not us. From first mention to complete discharge was about 7 months. We were completely at a loss...what are we going to do now?!
Chris decided he was sick of having bosses, so he called my dad about going into a business with him. Amazingly at this very time, my dad was in the process of purchasing a commercial property as a real estate deal. Well the owner of the property really wanted to "sell" the business with the property. So my dad said "you wanna run an electrical company?" Chris said "uh, I guess so." So we moved to Melbourne, FL in January 2005 and Chris has been running
Eau Gallie Electric ever since.
Now, what was I going to do? Well, it just so happens that Mom was going back into Agency at this time and she needed dependable staff people. Hello
Keturah. So I walked right into a job with her, and we had SO much fun! I am not a sales person, so I knew this wouldn't be my job forever, but it was great to get me down here and then give me time to figure out what I wanted to do.
A month after we got everything moved in and settled, I went to a new doctor for my routine OB/
GYN check up. Well the first question he asks me after my exam was "so are you here for a second opinion?" Uh...NO! Well he found a cyst the size of a grape fruit on my left ovary. (Can we see God's hand in all this...I wouldn't have been at this doctor's office if we hadn't been discharged!) The doctor said he figured it had been there for a few years?! WHAT?! So I was immediately scheduled for surgery the next week. I had no idea going in whether or not I would come out of the surgery with a full hysterectomy or just removal of the cyst. Talk about
nerve wracking! The cyst was definitely benign and they only had to remove my left ovary...I could still have children!! With that said, the doctor told me that we should probably start trying to have kids soon because it would
probably take us a long time to get pregnant since I only had the one ovary...great. We had planned on not having kids for another 2 years or so... Yeah...it took about a week to get pregnant. I can just imagine God laughing at "doctors" up in Heaven. :) We also found out after my surgery that the doctor I went to just happened to be a specialist in
gynecological surgery and was the high risk pregnancy doctor...I couldn't have been in more capable hands. Amazing!
So now, here we are a total of 14 years after our first meeting and we have been blessed with 2 beautiful girls, a thriving business, and a house directly across the street from my parents and within 2 miles of our church. I think that this was definitely part of God's plan for us, even though it is drastically different from the plan that Chris and I had when we first got married. :)
