Before I start moving backwards in my family history, I thought I’d first move laterally.
As I mentioned in my last post, I have two sisters, Amanda and Erin. Even though I’m the oldest, I’m still the single gal, so it makes sense to share their stories. We’ll start with Amanda, since she’s the next in line!
When Mandy was 21 (I believe), she was invited to a party at a friend’s house. Little did she know, it was a set-up. Her future husband had recently been sitting at that very friend’s kitchen table, talking about his “dream girl” and wondering aloud whether he’d ever find her.
It turned out that the friend knew her…it was my sister.
So she threw a party, and invited them both. They met at a picnic table and talked the night away. Skip was a marine reservist, and had just started the police academy (so he was as bald as a baby!). (Note: All of these pictures are my sister’s).
The famous picnic table. Not sure why he’s frowning!
For their first date, he took her shooting.
The day they officially started dating
Seriously. My sister is a tiny 5’4″ nothing, and he took her rifle shooting. He figured that he had NO chance with her, so he might as well lay his cards on the table all at once – if she wanted to see him after that, she was a keeper.
She did. I still remember her coming home with a bruise on her shoulder (and she’d worn a nice white blouse too!). But she’d had a great time and wanted to see him again.
Unfortunately, she was headed back to school. So they did the long distance thing again. And Skip got the news that he was being called up to active duty and then deployed to Iraq. My sister had done the deployment thing already – we have a cousin who served in the army and a number of friends who had already been deployed. But this was the first time she was sending someone she was in love with off to war.
Sending him off to training
But my little sister, the one who cried every time she had to leave my mom, turned out to be made of some pretty tough stuff. Skip gave her a promise ring and left for California for training. But little did she know, that wasn’t all.
He managed to get a few days of leave before having to deploy, and came home. My sister was so surprised and excited to see him, until he took a day away from her to spend with his sister. She wasn’t about to steal the time away from them, but he was gone a LONG TIME.
We knew, but she didn’t, that he was picking out her engagement ring, and asking my dad’s permission. I kept trying to tell her she needed to cut the poor guy a break, but she was MAD.
And then he asked her to marry him. He deployed, and my sister went through every possible emotion – joy over planning her wedding, desperate fear that she couldn’t plan too much in case he didn’t return, missing him like crazy, sleeplessness from being up every night to talk to him, and a period of several days when she didn’t know if he was alive or not, and put on everything of his that she had with her.
Engaged!
But he came home, and my sister is fond of saying that her wedding day wasn’t the happiest day of her life – the day Skip came home from Iraq was.
The happiest day of their lives
They’ve been married seven years this July, and in November 2008, they welcomed M, an adorable baby girl. In June 2011, they welcomed her sister, C. They are truly the light and joy of our family, and especially my sister’s. And I’ve never met someone better suited for my sister, or more in love with her and his daughters than my brother-in-law. Never could we have imagined our family turning out like this when we played as kids!
Wedding day
Baby M and Daddy
My sister’s family
My sister, Erin, is the youngest and when she met her husband-to-be, she his employee.
This was Erin’s profile picture for the longest time, when she wanted to have a photo of her with her boyfriend on Facebook, but it had to be secret!
Before she finished college, Erin had started to look for jobs. She found one at the local community paper, which would allow her to freelance before graduating, and move to full time when she was finished with school.
She met her editor, and I remember going to a parade in town with her and my mom and Amanda, and the paper had to have a table there. He was manning the table, and Erin pointed him out. When my mom suggested we go over to meet him, she quickly said no, and headed over for a brief second.
But they started to become friends, slowly but surely. And soon after, they were officially dating.
Meanwhile, pretty much everyone saw that coming except for Erin! My mom had been saying for months that she thought he was in love with her, and we’d all be rolling our eyes at her protests about him. The lesson – listen to your family.
But of course, it had to be a secret. Erin was the hardest worker at the paper, but if people knew that they were dating, they’d think she was being favored. We barely saw her because she was working constantly, or seeing her boyfriend. Finally, she found a position within the same media company, but with a different paper. And they could let their secret out!
The secret’s out!
Soon after that, they moved in together with her beagle and two birds. And soon after that, Kevin’s mom became sick with pancreatic and lung cancer. For both my sisters, there were some tough events fairly early on in their relationships that really gave them the chance to do the “for better or for worse” thing – it cemented how much they really love their husbands/fiances and showed them how short life can be.
Erin had the opportunity to spend a lot of time with Kevin’s mom, which I believe gave her the peace of knowing that her youngest son would be well taken care of. Not long after she was diagnosed, she passed away.
This past November, Erin was hoping that Kevin would propose. He’s certainly her perfect match in every way, and like with Amanda, I don’t think there’s anyone who could be better suited for her or love her more than he does (and her beagle, they come as a package deal).
The beagle. Yes, she’s wearing a tube around her neck
I was traveling on business, and sitting in my hotel room when I got a phone call. Since Erin has NEVER called me while I’m traveling, when she started to say “how’s the conference going?” I cut her off and said, “Erin, you must be calling for a reason!” She was engaged!
Engaged! (And dressing alike already)
While their plans haven’t been firmed up yet, they are looking to get married later this year and we look forward to seeing their family grow as well.
The happy couple
So those are my sisters’ stories – mine is still TBD. And now that we’ve gone laterally, we can start to dig back into my family’s history!
My Big Brave Life 