Meet The Family !!

I thought since there were a bunch of newer readers, I'd do a whole "About Me/Us" post!

~About Ashley ~

I was born and raised in Central Maine -- the youngest of three and the only girl. I was a dancer for 14 years. Ballet, tap, jazz ... you name it, until I went off to college. I attended a small private university in Bangor, Maine called Husson University. Originally I was there to get my Doctorate in Physical Therapy ...  but by the end of my third year I changed to a Health Science major and graduated on time with the rest of my class.

~About M.~

M. was born in small town North Carolina. His older brother and he are very close in age, only 11 months apart, and grew up always together. It's often said that M.'s brother was the ring leader ... and M. was the henchman. He caused whatever trouble his brother could mastermind! After high school, he worked a string of local jobs before deciding to head to the recruiters office. He left for Parris Island in January of 2006.

~How We Met~

During my senior year of college, M. stumbled across my Myspace [remember that old site?! I hear its still running ... Haven't checked it out myself, though!]. He had been through Basic with a friend of mine from high school.

I explicitly remember asking my roommate if she had any clue who the F** he was?! We had a lot of ROTC on our campus, but neither of us recognized the handsome guy with sharp blue eyes staring back at us from his dress blues photo. Being single, and finding his eyes, and uniform, hard to resist, I sent him a message.

We started talking as friends and then he dropped off the face of the Earth. Little did I know, he had been sent to Iraq on a six week mission. When he came back, he quickly found himself a local girlfriend and we talked here and there online as friends, but nothing significant.

In February of 2008, I was dating a guy from nearby. But things were pretty ... boring, to be honest. M. had resurfaced, admitted he wasn't seeing anyone, and innocently started the flirting. Nothing serious, because he knew I was seeing someone and didn't want to be that kind of guy. But it was cute ... and kept me entertained while I was in a few of my more boring classes.

A few weeks later, I stopped seeing the guy, and M. called me that night to see if I was okay. We talked for a couple hours that night, and each night for the rest of the week. But, we had never met each other. And he was 1,000 miles away! What were the chances of us actually getting to see each other?

Later that month, we finally decided to talk exclusively and see where things might go, and at that point, everything snowballed together. Within a week, I had booked a plane ticket  to go see him. By April, he had admitted he had feelings. May came ... I graduated and the next day I was on a plane to North Carolina.

I got off the plane Sunday evening. He was in blues at the airport, and tells me now that he had planned to get down on one knee there at the baggage claim, but got too nervous and chickened out. On the drive from Raleigh down to Wilmington, he slid a ring on my finger.

Three days later, we eloped to the courthouse and got married.

~Where we are Now~

18 months later, our oldest, S. was born. 2 years after that, our youngest, L. was born. And now, here we are, living in Eastern NC. Married 5 years this May. M. is medically retired from the Marine Corps, and working for the State Prison system, while I stay home and raise our Pups.

Not a day goes by that I regret things moving as fast as they did. Not a day goes by that I even blink my eyes. Sure, looking back I wonder What if I had been "catfished" like you see on tv these days. Or what if things hadn't worked out. But ultimately, I'm glad I acted first and thought second. I'll never regret following my heart all the way to North Carolina!