A Brief History of Daniel and Sara

Okay, since many people do not know the whole story of Daniel and Sara, here is the quick version:

We met on the Internet, in the Yahoo! teen chat room called Grovespace. This was before eHarmony and Match.com, and we weren't even looking for romance. We were just two 17 year olds chatting in a chat room about deep things such as music, life, and probably how oppressive our parents were or something.

We chatted for a while, and then started talking on the phone, writing letters (the old fashioned way to communicate), and eventually Daniel bought a plane ticket and flew to New Mexico to meet me in person. I wasn't an old man, he wasn't a stalker, and we really were who we said we were. It was great, and we decided at that point that we did, in fact, love each other.

Next, he flew home and we kept up the long-distance thing. I visited him in Louisiana, and then he flew to Ohio to visit me at my college. During that trip, we figured, "why not just get married?" And so we did.

We found a minister that would marry us the next day, bought a marriage license, stopped for a drink at McDonald's, and got married. The ceremony was in the minister's basement, which was decorated nicely for Christmas. We forgot the rings in the car, and Daniel had to go get them in the middle of the ceremony. I was wearing a grey sweater and jeans. We didn't know we had to pay the minister, so he gave us a discounted rate. I know it sounds awful, but it was really the best day of my life.

Daniel and I moved a lot during our first five years of marriage. Every time a lease was up on the apartment we were living in at the time, we would move to a new city. Oh, the things you can get away with when you have no children! We lived in at least 7 different apartments/ houses that I can remember before we found out in February 2003 that we were expecting Abigail Horizon. Our favorite was when we lived in the "big city" - Columbus, Ohio.

Right before we had Abby, we moved to an apartment in the Dayton area and actually renewed our lease after a year. This is something we'd never done before - parenting was really changing us. We celebrated our 5th anniversary 3 months after Abby was born. We were a happy family of three for 15 months, and then found out we were having an Avery Ellis. We decided to buy a house at that point, and that's where we live to this day.

We were a happy family of 4, living in our own house, and driving a mid-sized sedan. We then found out we were expecting Ethan James. So, we brought him home to a our house-made-for-four and our car-made-for-three, and realized we needed more room. Too bad. We're still in the same house, but now have a minivan.

So, we are still writing the story of Daniel and Sara, but that is the background behind the ten years that we've been married.