Our Story

Whatever souls are made of, his and mine are the same.

- Emily Bronte

My friend Hanah, (see the Gavin's Blog) tagged me to write the story of how Leo and I met. I in turn tag anyone else reading this to write the same. I definitely agree with Hanah, I love hearing how people met. In fact, last weekend I was helping tie some quilts for donation at the church, and it was me and three ladies in their seventies or so. And they all told how they met their husbands. One lady met her husband while hitchhiking from Lethbridge to Medicine Hat in February. That marriage ended in divorce by the way.

So this is how Leo and I met.... I had just finished my second year of school at USU (Go Aggies!)

Utah State University Campus

and had paid for my summer's rent at Old Farm Apartments

Old Farm Apartments

when my older sister Amy called and said I should stay with her for the summer.

My sister Amy

So a day and a half later I had sold my summer housing contract and was headed down to Arizona, where Amy got me a job at The Place at Gilbert, an assisted living center.

The Place At Gilbert

Leo's mother, Martha, was the housekeeper, and we hung out all the time with Silvia, who was another CNA. Silvia was from Mexico but she spoke English well, so she could translate between Martha and me, since Martha at the time, didn't speak much English at all. Anyway, we three hung out because we were the only people who worked there who didn't smoke, so we took our breaks together.

My mother-in-law Martha with Orlando, my father-in-law

Martha kept inviting me over to her house for a barbeque but I was shy and a little cautious and didn't really want to accept, because frankly I could hardly communicate with her and didn't really know her that well. I did, however, figure out pretty quickly that she was trying to set me up with her son, because she lacked the ability to be subtle with her limited English, although she did try. Well, when the summer was almost over and she continued asking me over, (she's very persistent) I figured what the heck, and accepted as long as my sister Amy could come with her kids. So she stopped by when I was working, with her son, to "translate" the directions. And that is the first time I met Leo. I later found out she had tricked him into coming.

The apartments Leo's family lived in where they had the BBQ

Then when I went to the barbeque, Leo was completely shy, especially since he knew his mom was trying to set him up with me, but he was nice and so I asked him out on a date a couple of days later, just for fun, thinking it would go nowhere as I was going back to Utah in two weeks and he was Catholic, etc. We had a good time, (He was HOT! Nicely snug black t-shirt, what more need I say? ). We saw each other every night till I left and six days after our first date we took my nieces, Megan and Olivia, to a movie with us and while we were buckling them into their carseats in Leo's parents' minivan I felt that this was how it was going to be with our own kids one day and I knew I was going to marry him then.

My nieces Olivia and Megan (much older)

I later found out he had felt exactly the same right about then too. He came up during Thanksgiving and proposed and we were married one year after that.

My hot husband and cute little girl