I was born June 27, 1983 to a wonderful mother. My dad...not so much. I didn't know him until I was 12. I'll get to that, though.

I was raised in a republican house. With words like democrap being thrown around. I remember my family being very ecstatic when George H W Bush won the election & very upset when Bill Clinton won.

When I was about 6 years old I started going to a church down the road from me in the summer for Vacation Bible School. We made little crafts & talked about Jesus. After one or two years, my cousin that I was closest to starting coming with me. He was two years older than I was. Well, I guess he still is. Anyway, we would go & have fun learning about all the things they would teach us. Occasionally they would try to split us up because of our age difference. When I reached age 10 or 11, I was asked to talk to some of the younger kids about Jesus. I thought this was just awesome. I got to talk about something I cared about! I was so happy when I would do this. But, as it turns out, I didn't really get to say what I wanted to say. They would just give me a piece of paper with a bunch of stuff to say to them. I didn't like this at all. I stopped going the next year.

I also when with a few of my younger cousins to another church for VBS. They had a much bigger congregation. All the kids would go into this enormous room, well, it was for me at the time, & the people who spoke sat up on these tall pulpits. I remember having to look up to see them. They would always say things that the church I went to would never say. Things like, The minute you were born, you sinned. The first time you cried, it was a sin.

It terrified me. Honestly, it did. I was like 9 years old & was terrified of going to hell. So I went & got saved by some bloke at this church one day. I never really went back to this church, but I did feel good about being saved.

Another thing that happened was July 4^th, 1997. My mom & I were driving home from watching fireworks & she suddenly swereved the car into oncoming traffic. Not that there was any traffic coming, thankfully. She regained control of the car & said that she felt really weird. The next day she went to the doctor & was diagnosed with Bell's Palsey. At this point, my Uncle had told us of a very nice guy he knew who was also a pastor. He spoke at a church in Pendleton. We had been going there for about a year at this point. So this guy, I can't remember his name, took time out of his sermon when my mom had this. He came over to her, put his hand on her head & prayed like I'd never heard anyone pray before in their life. I thought it worked because my mom wasn't taking any medications for it. Turns out, 85% of people will start to show signs of improvement withing 3 weeks of it's onset.

Sometime when I got older, I decided I liked sleeping more than church. So my mom & grandma would go without me. Until one day when they both stopped going. My grandma had osteoporosis & couldn't walk very well. So we stopped going. Flash forward to November 12^th, 20000. My grandma died this day. I was over at a friends house & got a call early in the morning telling me to get to the hospital. I drove as fast as I could to get there to see her & talk to her. I did. About 2 minutes after she died, one of my cousins walked out of the elevator with an unopened bottle of Pepsi in his hands. I never asked him, but I made the assumption that he stopped before he came or got it out of the vending machine in the hospital. If he would have brought it from home, he lived far enough away that I would assume he would have opened it on the way to the hospital. At that point in my life, I'd never been so mad at someone. I hope getting that drink was worth not talking to your grandma.

Sometime in late 2001 or early 2002, I joined a band with Christian ties to it. They were awesome & I was so happy to be a part of this band. We got to play at Warped Tour which, for me, was awesome. We went through some line up changes.

On September 9^th, 2002 my mom was complaining of a pain in her stomach. She went to the hospital the next day & had an emergency appendectomy that day. Later, when they were running tests on her blood or, possibly, appendix, they found something. They found cancer but didn't know where. Turns out she had cervical cancer. She was transferred to the IUPUI hospital in Indianapolis for treatment. She started treatment in early October after a brief stay at home in September. Once she underwent all the radiation treatment that they could give her without harming her, they asked if she wanted to start chemotherapy treatment. After much discussion with her family & doctors, she declined. All the doctors we talked to said that even if she did have the treatment, there was a really good chance that it still wouldn't remove the cancer. So, be miserable & in pain for maybe another month or two or be comfortable & go a little sooner. I'd pick the latter, too. She was moved to a nursing home where we lived for easier access to her family. I remember the band I was in & the youth pastor of the church where we practiced went to see her one night. I was so comforted by that & had a strong belief that there would be no way that she was going to die. She was way too great of a person. The Lord would not do that to someone that nice.

She died on Christmas day 2002. I didn't know it then, but that was the day I lost my faith in God.

I convinced myself that God needed her for something bigger in the afterlife than He did on Earth. Skip forward a few years later. Let's say, 2006. That was the last time I had a major update about myself.

Umm, I don't remember much of 2006 or the beginning of 2007. Oh, wait, yes I do. I was dating a horrible horrible person after treating a much more awesome person like shit. That was retarded of me. I'm going to skip over this part & not talk about it.

Around August 16^th, 2007 I got back together with that awesome person that I should have stayed with all along. We had awesome adventures to Warped Tour & later to New York with awesome friends. A couple months later, I asked her to marry me. She happily said yes. Since we were getting married & we also knew we wanted to move out of Indiana, we decided to get married at the court house as it would be easier before we moved. That and we didn't have the money for a fancy wedding. We got married on February 29^th, 2008. Yeah, we're awesome. We had a few more awesome months including a weekend at a beautiful cabin & an awesome going away party for us before leaving Indiana.

When we left Indiana, we had every intention of going to California. That ended up not working out. We stayed at a motel for about a week while constantly looking for places to stay in either Portland or Seattle. The first place that popped up was a room for rent on the Southeast side of Portland. We called the guy at 11:45 at night & asked if we could come see it in a couple days. We drove the next day up I-5 through California & into Oregon. We had our first culture shock when we stopped for gas & the attendent pumped it. Weird. Then we found out that there isn't sales tax out here. We should have figured out at that point in time that this was a weird place.

So we get into this room that we pay for with an awesome roommate. Really nice guy. We stay there for a little under a year when we find a place in Beaverton. It's an apartment. But more importantly, it's our first apartment together.

We move into the apartment only to realize that we get very sad without anyone else. That & we found out that if we're the only one's that the other sees all the time, we get into more fights. And that's no fun. So one night, out of nowhere, Sam asks me if I want to move back to Indiana. Mind you, she was in a very heavy sleep right before she woke up & asks this. I said no. Because, at that point, I really thought she wanted to be out here. The next day or so I asked her if she remembered asking if I wanted to move back to Indiana. She did remember.

We got to talking about it & realized while being on our own is great, everyone that we've met already has their own friends & their own things they do. We missed our friends terribly & decided that we want to go home. We did get an awesome kitty out here. He's seriously great. I'm also very happy that we've gone through this adventure/experiment together. I know I wouldn't have been able to do it on my own.

What I'm getting at is that marrying Sam is the best decision I could have ever made. She's wonderful. She's beautiful &, best of all, I can talk to her about anything. We know we're in this together even though it took me a while to realize that. I'm glad that I've found the one person I truly want to be with so early on. And I'm pretty sure she is, too.

A TACO PICNIC!!!!