Reminiscing

     Even though I wasn't tagged...I thought I would do one anyway. My friend Jessica did a picture that had a word across it...a word that meant alot to her "Grace". She tagged a couple of people in her blog to do the same and even though I wasn't tagged I thought I would do one anyway. 

     I choose "Forgiven". I thought for a while about a good word to put on there and alot came to mind but one that stuck out in my head was "forgiven" I have been forgiven. Not only by God but by my friends and family and people that I have hurt in my life. I did alot of things in my past that hurt both myself and the poeple that I loved around me and I have been greatly forgiven...because of this I have been able to move on with my life, and find an AMAZING man that I truely believe was put on this world just for me, and even though I sometimes feel like I could smack him with a shovel and burry him in the back yard, I love him completely. Together we have been blessed with an wonderful daughter that we both would be lost without!

     We stayed up until 1:00 in the morning talking about our versions of when we met...I figured I would take this time to write our novel for those of you who don't know it or don't know the whole thing.

      I used to work for a dentist down in the valley. Turns out he was Aaron's grandma's brother in law...so Aarons great uncle.  Dr. Cheatwood has gone on missions trips around the world doing dental work for people in remote villages who need it done. By showing his love to others through selfless work, he hoped that the love of God would shine through him and touch the people of these places. This was our goal and mission for going with him. I had been the year before to Nicaragua and vowed to never be in the dental part of the mission because I didn't think I could stomach it. After successfully pulling my first tooth (yes, someone elses) I fell in love with everything dental and became his right hand woman. 

    We also did eye work down there. People would be seen and tested for glasses and given what they needed in order to see. It was touching to see people who had never been able to read the Bible, pick one up and read it themselves for the first time. Aaron's grandma and grandpa ran the eye section of the medical part. 

     The first year in Nicaragua I met Chris, Aaron's cousin. We all got to know him pretty well but unfortunately he left without giving us any contact information and we were all afraid that we would never get to see him again. So, as we sat and waiting to catch our flight in the airport in San Diego, everyone was hoping to see Chris walk through the doors with Bill and Grace. Instead, in walked this tall, gangly, emo looking kid, with ridiculously tight skater pants, a black shirt, with his hair obviously dyed black. He was wearing dark sunglasses that made him seem distant from everyone else. I was upset not to see Chris and wondered who this goon was (yep, just what I thought).

     I was then rudely interrupted when we all discovered that MY passport, that had been given to our youth pastor for "safe" keeping had not made it to the airport with everyone elses. "only me" I thought; only I would have something like this happen to me. I guess I should tell everyone that I was successfully failing high school and had been threatened on many occations that I was not going to get to go on the trip. And even though I had raised all of the money I needed, I had not made it to several of the "mandantory" meeting and quite honestly at the time I don't think I was spiritually where I needed to be in order to even go and do what I was meant to do...show love. These things were all concerns of the youth pastor and Dr. Cheatwood himself...my argument of course was that if anything I NEEDED to go and show love so that I could feel love back. Somehow I skated through and made it to the airport, only to get stopped at the gate because I didn't have my passport.

     I ended up staying behind with my friend, Debbie, Dr. Cheatwoods daughter and Aaron's dad's cousin. In the mean time our pastor had found my passport in the copying machine (the youth pastor had made copies of everyone passports for safe keeping, HA) and had made it to San Diego...normally a 2 hour drive, made into a 45 minute drive. Debbie and I were able to catch the next plane to Panama (only 2 seats were still available).

    Once in Panama we found out that my bags had not been picked up with my original flight and I was left without a bag...LUCKILY I had packed all of my essentials in my carry-on and it was later tracked down and I got it 2 days later.

    With all of this going on I had little time to even notice Aaron. I tried at one point to teach him how to assist Dr. Cheatwood, he ended up getting frustrated at me ( I didn't even know this guy!) and left. I couldn't believe it. How dare he! Why wasn't Chris there instead?

     That night we played the Jesus Film for everyone in the village, most of whom had never even seen a video. When I tried to walk out the door I was stopped by someone standing in the doorway. I sighed and said "yeah, you make a better door then a window!). Aaron turned around looked right over my head and said "hmmm. I thought I heard something" and turned back around. It was love after that!! Literally...love at second sight! My heart started fluttering and from then on I tried to be everywhere that he was.

     After the film was over that night we all went down to the river. We were told by the locals that there were not any "cocodrillos" in the river, but warned by Dr. Cheatwood that there were. We went anyway, of course, only to get down there and get stopped in our tracks by all of the defensive clicks from the crocodiles. I grabbed on to Aaron, who was conveniently right beside me, and we both ran back up to the main house. 

     The rest of Panama is pretty much history...Aaron was a typical boy and completely oblivious to me.  Although I had an insider (Cory) in the guys room who said that he was always asking about me. I also had all of the other guys in there telling him to stay away. Cory would drop hints for Aaron all the time and eventually he got the idea. 

    One day I was tired of assisting Dr. Cheatwood and someone else had taken my place and I had some down time. I didn't want down time, I wasn't there to not do anything so I asked the missionary if there was something else I could do that didn't have to do with medical stuff. I never worked in the eyes because Grace (Aaron's grandma) was the one heading that up and it felt like she had a third eye and THAT eye was ALWAYS on me. So I passed up on the opportunity to work in the eyes (which were boring compared to the blood and gore in the dental) The missionary told me that he had a bucket and a paint brush and I had a HUGE zip-line tower that they had just built that I could paint. So my friend Lauren and I went up there to paint for a while. A little while into painting we could see someone, about a mile away, walking towards us...it was Aaron :). Lauren started to conveniently feel sick and left and it was just me and him up there. I got to talk to him and REALLY get to know him. I told him I was interested in him, he seemed shocked (oblivious) and told me that he felt the same way. That night I asked him to prom and he asked me to mine. 

    After that we were able to see eachother every two weeks, between my prom and his and...what are the odds? In all the high schools in the entire state of California, Paso Robles and Brawley had their grad nights at Disneyland on the same night. I found out after the first time that I came up to visit that my Aunt lived only 2 minutes from Aarons house. So for the Summer I would come up and stay with her for a week and then he could come down and stay with his dad's cousin Debbie and we were able to be with eachother. 

    To me ALL of this seems like a plan that would be impossible to plan or make work without some sort of heavenly hand. There were so many circumstances that should have made this relationship impossible to happen, but against all the odds, it did! And we couldn't be happier!

I found this picture on my computer the other day and showed it to Aaron. We both couldn't stop laughing!

    Aaron's mom was planting flower in her planter and we went over to watch since Emily LOVE to be ouside

Emily and her Aunt Kaylee

I have more picture on my other blog. In case you couldn't tell that is a bulldog puppy. I think the look like catfish when they have their heads up like that. Here is my favorite one...the rest are on the other page.

     Aaron and I are coming up on our 3 year anniversary! and just past the 4 year mark of the first day that we met. After our late night talk last night I realized someting...I love him more today than I ever have!!