For one year in elementary school, Rod's mom would bring him over to our house early in the morning to catch the bus with me so she could take his brother (my brother-in-law) to preschool. We would play Barbies and Cops 'n Robbers. (We learned to compromise with each other before we knew our times tables! ;)
Then, his family moved across town and we didn't see each other very often. After junior high, he went to the public high school and I went to private school. After he graduated, he went into the service and I went to college.
A few years later, thanks to good old Myspace, we reconnected while he was in Virginia Beach with the Navy and I was back in Connecticut with my parents. We would talk for hours and hours on the phone - up to 8 at a time! (We didn't get much sleep during that period of time.) I don't know how we had so much to talk about after awhile -- I despise talking on the phone.
After only a couple short months, he asked me to move to Virginia Beach to be with him. We lived together for a couple of years--and many Naval deployments--before he asked me to marry him.
Koko and Bear came into our lives in 2006. While Rod was out on his first short detachment at sea with the Navy and I was home alone, I decided to go to the SPCA and adopt a dog. I saw Koko and immediately fell in love with her. She was already--they guessed--about a year old, and it is my impression that she could have been even older at the time. She's the size of a Beagle with the ears and bark of a Beagle, but the markings of a black lab. I call her my permanent puppy because she's small and very much a lap dog, but will never grow to be any larger!
Bear was born in October of that year and I adopted him a couple months later from a farm in North Carolina. A friend of mine had seen a litter of puppies on Craigslist and had to go get one. I came along, with every assumption that I wouldn't be able to resist bringing one home myself--and I was right. I named him Bear because he was cute and fluffy like a teddy bear, but had big paws, so I thought he'd grow up to be real big, like a bear. He's never gone above 55 pounds, though, which is pretty small for a lab.
They're our babies--we love them! :)
On Saturday, August 2, 2008, the best day of my life, I married the love of my life! We honeymooned in the Outer Banks, North Carolina and shortly after returning to Virginia Beach, bought a house back up in Connecticut closer to family.
Rod had gotten out of the Navy a year before we moved, and switched careers to law enforcement. After several odd jobs here and there, I started working for a psychiatric nurse practitioner and that's where we've been since then! We've both been going to school since October of 2008 for our Bachelor's degrees--Rod in Criminal & Social Justice and me in Psychology and Child Development. We are both expecting to graduate in May of 2012.
Here we are today, getting ready to grow our family and live the rest of our lives, happily ever after in our house with our picket fence. ♥
