Our Story

I realized today that I write about the kids all the time, but I never write about Greg and I. I thought I would tell you how we met and our story. Some day the kids will ask how we met. Now I can just say, "Read my blog." Ha!Ha!

My first job was working at Wehrenberg's Keller 8 Cine in South County. After several years there, one of the managers transferred to Lindbergh 8 and I went with him. A lot of other "cool" people left Keller and there were no more fun managers left, so I went to Lindbergh. Thank God I did. This was in May of 1993, just after I graduated from high school. I met a lot of great people there and we all became close friends. We hung out as a pack, going to movies, watching movies at each other's houses, bowling, eateries, mini golf and other things. We'd hang out after the theater closed and talk on the parking lot for hours. Then before we realized what happened, Greg and I were the only ones sitting on the parking lot talking for hours and hours and hours. Who knew we had so much to talk about? I went away to college in August and Greg finished his senior year of high school. We wrote so many letters (this was before emailing, if you can believe that). Every day I checked my mail box at school hoping for a letter or package from him. He was so sweet. One time when I was home visiting for the weekend we went to see a movie and there was a claw machine in the lobby. There was this (what was then) cute ape holding a banana that we tried to win, but no luck. Within the next few weeks, I received a package at school and when I opened it, I saw that ape. I forgot how many rolls of quarters it took him to win it, but he did and sent it to me. That's when I knew he was a keeper.

During Christmas break we worked together as much as possible and hung out all the time. If one of us was working, the other was hanging around at the theatre. I knew we were dating when he got back one night from going to California, MO on Christmas. He met me at the theatre after I got off work so we could exchange presents. He told me one of his uncles (I can't remember which one, I want to say it was Jim) asked if he had a girlfriend. I was shocked when he told me that he told his uncle, "Yes". I guess that's when it became official. It took another 6 months till we had our first kiss. Shocker! (He'll kill me for saying this.) We were both new to the dating scene.

We wrote back and forth, called all the time and I came home from Kansas City as much as I could. I was miserable being so far away. I couldn't wait to spend the whole summer with him. I transferred to Southeast for my 2nd year and he went to Rolla. Now instead of being 5 hours apart, we were only 3, not that it mattered. But we found friends to road trip with us back and forth from Cape and Rolla and we met in St.Louis as often as we could. This went on until December of 1997 when I graduated and moved back home and got a job. Now we were only one and a half hours apart while he finished up at Rolla. It took him a few more years until he graduated in 2001.

Greg lived at home with his parents and I lived in a couple apartments in south county and south city. I loved being in an apartment on my own. In February of 2001 Greg proposed. We went to Ted Drews for some Ice Cream and then headed back to my apartment. I was driving and as I got out of the car, he got out of his side and slammed the door. He screamed really loud and said he got his finger caught. This was especially scary since our friend had recently lost his finger by slamming it in the car door. So I freaked out and ran over to him. He was down on the ground, 'in pain' and held his hand to me. All I saw was something shiny, but in the heat of the scary moment, I assumed it was the bone sticking out. He started to laugh and stood up and showed me the ring and said something about getting married. After hitting him, we went into my apartment. After catching my breath, I made him really propose on his knee. He did and of course I said yes!

I decided to move back home with my parents to save money for the wedding. My mom LOVED this idea so I could be close and she could help plan the wedding. As most of you know we were married on 2-2-02 at 2pm. Yes, that's Groundhog's Day. It was a beautiful 40 degree day. We were kind of wanting snow for the pictures, but with so much family coming from out of town, it worked out better to have spring-like weather.

We bought our house the August of 2001 before the wedding. I moved in that October and Greg moved in after the wedding. We took our honeymoon in Maui and it was AWESOME. One night on a dinner cruise we vowed to go back on our 5th anniversary. Well its been 7 years and we haven't been back. We can't quite afford it with 3 kids and me not working.

We started out family in 2003 and have 3 kids now. They are wonderfully, awesome, spoiled, loved, stressful, hard but worth everything.