Embraced

On October 16, 1993 my wonderful journey began with my husband Matt. I was embraced into a wonderful family. We gather together very often at a place that is sometimes called "the compound." When I joined it was much smaller. It consisted of a grandma, a grandpa, a mom, an aunt,an uncle, two cousins, and three brothers. My sister-in-law Brandi joined about the same time I did. Now it is much, much bigger and we love each other more and more everyday. Here's how my life with Matt all started.

My Freshman year started out just right when I joined choir at Ramona High School. Although singing was my reason for being in the class, that's not why it started out so well. There was a certain funny senior who was a "TA" for the office who decided to hang out in the choir room with his favorite teacher instead. If you haven't guessed yet, yes it was Matt. He was the funniest guy I'd been around in a long time. I went to school with his brothers and knew him from the skating rink (I've just dated myself) Is that still the hangout??? Anyway, the story goes on....nothing came of that that first year...just friends. Then the beginning of my sophmore year started off with Matt coming along on the annual choir retreat as a "chaperone." Matt snapped my behind with a rubber band and on the bus ride home he asked me if I'd give him "TLC" for the rest of his life. I guess that was his way of asking me out. I said yes and the funny thing is now my initials are TLC. There are tons of memories that are too long to mention, but I hope you enjoyed the basic intro.

Now almost sixteen years later the family is huge (three little ones joined us just this year!), but we still get together every Thursday for dinner at grandma and grandpa's, family celebrations for birthdays, just about every holiday, random times during the week. We all get along very well. Someone once asked one of my sister-in-laws (I have 4 and we're hoping for the 5th soon) do you guys every fight? She thought about it and said, "no, not really." I love it!

Here's one example of a night at grandma and grandpa's house just because.....one day I hope to get a picture of all of us on here.