About Me and My Family

Hello!

   Thought I would take a little time to introduce myself; because sometimes, it's easier to connect to the writer if you know where they're coming from!

   I was born in Aurora, Colorado and had lived all over Colorado up until I got married in July of 2016. I have to boast about my home state, as do most natives to their land! While the Eastern part of the state is not all the rage and certainly doesn't live up to the outsider's idea of "Colorado living", it still houses some good people. If you want the real magic, however, travel to the Western half. The mountain ranges of Colorado hold a special place in my heart. I've traveled through them many times, hiked a few trails, and experienced them in all seasons. Even the ocean, which can be quite breath-taking, cannot give the same feeling of euphoria. I am very blessed that my family will most likely stay in Colorado, giving me repeated reasons to return to my homeland! Can you tell that I miss it?

  Growing up, I had four brothers and two sisters; it was just four of us kids in the household at once though, the other three being older. I was blessed to have my dad, who is a very hard worker, and my mom, who is one of the wisest people I know. We were homeschooled through much of our education, leaving my last three years of high school to be spent in the public school system. We were raised Catholic, and I am grateful to my parents for this, as they spent exponential amounts of time and energy making sure we were well catechized and knew how to be active members of the Church.

   I went to a community college for two years and studied science, intending to enter into a biology research position one day. I did a lot during that time, including tutor students, work on independent aerospace research, clean houses, babysit, go to class, work in the lab, meet people, form a few friendships, and incidentally, find a stronger faith. Like perhaps many people my age, I thought I had the whole deal figured out! I didn't figure out until later that it was really in preparation for my upcoming vocation!

   I remember my dad had just driven me across the state back to college, after a wonderful Christmas break in 2015. School wasn't supposed to start for another few days and my roommate wasn't back either. I cleaned the floor, stocked the fridge and watched a few Netflix movies. I remember looking at the church bulletin and the ads that generally take up space on the back. One of the ads that always made it in among the others was the one for Catholic Match, the dating website for Catholics. I got this sense of intense curiosity and tried to ignore it for a day, as I previously scoffed at the idea of getting on a dating site. At some point, I couldn't contain myself and said a prayer telling God that, of course my vocation was in His hands and I was by no means trying to step in on His judgment and mercy.

   It was actually a lot of fun setting up my profile, as well as looking into what the site considered to be my matches. It has this fun little feature that lets you see who has peeked at your profile too. So after three days, a number of people had looked into mine, a few had sent messages, but nothing really occurred. I then noticed this guy, named Eric Miller, had stopped by my profile; so I decided to return the favor. Turns out we were on the same degree path (though he had finished his bachelor's by then), so I decided to message him. Would you believe in the next week we would exchange quite a number of messages? In fact, if you take it all and put it in a Word document, it comes out to forty pages worth!

   Anyways, he decided to call me after that and each subsequent phone call lasted for four hours, as did the Skype sessions. I was in my fourth semester of college in Colorado and he was in his third block (quarter) of medical school in North Carolina. His spring break was also coming up in March and he asked if I wanted to meet up. Our spring breaks didn't match up, but in a leap of faith, I took a week off of my busiest semester and flew to Phoenix, where his family lives, to meet him.

Our first date to the symphony! Look how awkward we were! 

     Needless to say, it went very well! I flew back home after five days, with the official status that I was dating someone. Fast forward one month, I was in D.C. for an honors conference. Eric lived about four hours away, so he drove up to see me. I had never been to the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception and Eric had told me wonderful things about it; so he took me to see it on the quiet, rainy morning of April 9th. It was empty, save for a few maintenance workers. We walked from chapel to chapel, and once we got to one in the back of the church, he asked me to marry him.

The chapel where he proposed.

First engagement photo!

Fast forward again three and a half months, to July 16th... our wedding day! I'll let the pictures speak for how happy we both were. 

We had the honor of being married by my long-time spiritual director and family friend, Fr. Wedow!

       After staying out West for another week, we flew home to Lillington, North Carolina. Soon after, we found out we were blessed again with our first baby! 

       So currently now, we are living life, waiting for our son to arrive in April, and Eric is getting through medical school. More details on that in a post! I'd say we've enjoyed our first six months of marriage. Though its been quiet, it is the path just for us and has certainly taught us both many things! I think this blog is the perfect thing to tie it all together!

Thank you for reading this very lengthy page. Hopefully, if you got anything out of it, it would be patience! I will try to update it as time goes on!