our love story, part two

photo by Stina Reffit Photography

so here we are for part two! you can catch part one here in case ya missed it. oh and you'll want to see the awesomesauce picture of charles and i before our FRESHMAN homecoming dance. it's all kinds of embarrassing.

again, this is from our wedding website so the tone is a little different than i normally like to keep it over here. hope you enjoy part two!

High school came and went. We moved into together the spring after we graduated, in March 2005. We lived in a tiny one bedroom duplex in a shady neighborhood. But it was amazing, because it was our place. Our first place together. We had always talked about how awesome it would be to be "grown ups" and live together. To go to sleep and wake up in the same place. And we finally had it.

We lived in that house for a couple years until we met one-third of the super friends, Garrett and Jessica. Within a couple months of knowing each other, we promptly decided that we needed to become roommates and move in together. And so it was. We moved into a four bedroom home with our new best friends. There were a lot of good times in that house. We like to refer to it as our "college years" even though only one of us was actively enrolled in school. But you get the idea.

um, yes i am lil jon. best halloween evar btw.

After living there for a couple more years, we decided it was once again time to move on our own. We moved into the house that Charles had lived in since he was three years old. This was the house that we would start to build our family. We just didn't know that part yet.

After a year of just hanging around, without much direction in our lives except working our nine to fives, the biggest change to our lives happened. On November 9th, 2009 we found out we were pregnant.

It wasn't part of our "plan" but sometimes life doesn't follow your plan. We knew this was supposed to happen ths way. This was for a reason. We were beyond excited to welcome a new member to our little family.

A couple months before we were expecting our new addition, we went on a babymoon, or one last trip before the baby comes. We traveled by car (Charles's '91 BMW, of course) north Interstate 5 through Northern California, Oregon, Washington and up to Vancouver, British Columbia and then back down the coast. One of our first stops was to Crater Lake. We had been told by many that it was worth the trip and they were right. It was breathtakingly beautiful. 

It was May 1st, 2010. There was several feet of snow atop this mountain with a lake in the middle of it. We were dressed for summer weather. After getting in a fight because Charles wanted to trek a little further in the snow and Melissa getting mad because "I'm 30 weeks pregnant! I'm not going to hike around in the snow!", Charles managed to talk Melissa into going a little further away from the rest of the tourists. That is where Charles got on one knee and proposed. In the snow with Crater Lake as the backdrop. The words he said are not remembered because of the anxiety going through Charles's brain and Melissa's absolute shock but they were special. And life changing.

On June 1st, 2010 a month to the date of our engagement, we welcomed John Charles the Third. He has made our lives whole. He fits so perfectly in our family and we are so thankful everyday that he is here.