this is us

a little about 'us.'

aaron: he was born in south korea to a army civi contractor and a beautiful south korean. the same year that my parents moved stateside from germany, his family, including an his older sister, moved stateside too. after graduating high school, he attended virginia tech and was a member of their corps of cadets and the hightie tighties. upon graduation he was commissioned to the united states army and attended obc school in arizona. his first duty station was mac dill afb. while at mac dill, he deployed with his soldiers (as all good platoon leaders do). upon his return to tampa, we met!

we actually met online, through an online dating service. i know, gust, it actually works! i stood him up for our first date and had it not been for his cwo, he'd probably wouldn't have given me a second chance. but, on april 7th, 2006, we had our firt date. it lasted 12 hours! and the juiciest detail came at 4am when he kissed me on the beach. he's a true gentleman ladies! a year to the date later, we were married on that very same beach that he first kissed me.

but a lot happened in that year! just three months after we started dating, aaron received orders for ft. polk, la. it was a long three weeks while we deliberated and hemmed and hahhed about whether i would go or stay. well, i went with him! and just a few weeks after reporting to ft. polk, aaron received his deployment orders (if you're keeping track, that's two deployments in one year). labor day he left. but the guys came home early! i stuck out the three long months in leesville, la and it was well-worth it! after spending christmas with is parents in virginia, we came home and unwrapped the rest of our gifts, including one very shiny ring that would send our lives into overdrive (but that's because God's plans our better then ours).


we had our eyes set on a labor day weekend wedding in tampa. that all changed when aaron called from the field in march, 'hunnie, i could leave for iraq as early as april.' and i said, 'well, that will make it hard for you to be at our september 2nd wedding.' now what! in three weeks, with the help of our friends and family, we threw together our wedding! and it was the wedding we wanted.

on that first date aaron and i had discussed already the notion of children someday (i had a feeling he was a keeper). we had said we would want to wait and spend the first year of marriage just the two of us. but with a long deployment looming in the future, we agreed to try on our honeymoon. well, with four days to go until our wedding, i started feeling sick. thinking it might be the stomach flu, i went and saw the doc. no stomach flu for me, but she said i might be doing a lot more throwing up in the next few months... we were going to be parents!

on april 7th of 2007 we were married on the very beach where we had our first kiss. we had our reception at the same restaurant we ate at on our first date. and we even managed to squeeze in a honeymoon cruise. and, aaron's deployment orders seemed to disappear, for now.

half way through my pregnancy with our son, which was going like a breeze!, aaron got orders for a november deployment. so, we welcomed our son, had thanksgiving and christmas all in the same weekend and then we put aaron on a bus with his soldiers and started our weekly trips to the post office with care packages.

so, that's us, in a nutshell. we aren't your typical army family, but we're not one on end of the other of the extremes either. we're just us, and we like it that way.