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Saturday, May 10, 2014

Our Love Story, as told four years ago, in honor of our sixth anniversary

Today is our sixth wedding anniversary.  Seems a little crazy writing that.  It's neat because today is Saturday, just like the day we got married.  Six years ago at about this time I was leaving my parents' house for the church building, preparing to sit in a chair for several hours getting my hair curled!

Four years ago today, I wrote the following post on my old blog.  It's basically our love story up until our wedding.  I'd like to add to it, because so much has changed in the last four years, the biggest change being Charles' arrival into our family!  But for now, this will have to do.  :)

******

Two years ago today, Trevvor and I were joined together in front of witnesses as man and wife, for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health.


We had met almost two years before that, on June 7, 2006, at freshmen orientation for the University of Alabama.  He sat behind me and my future roomie in the first session with another guy (his future roomie also), and they thought we were pretty so they introduced themselves.

My future roomie and I... with Trevvor in the background.  
We hadn't even introduced ourselves yet!

Trevvor and I were in the same small-group for orientation since our last names both started with a "C."  We found out we'd both been home-schooled and that we were both Christians, and hung out for much of orientation together.  A few days later he befriended me on Facebook, and we kept up throughout the summer.

Trevvor, me, and his future roomie on the last day of orientation.

In August, we arrived on campus a week before classes started to participate in a service-learning project called Outdoor Action.  There were only about 20 students participating, and we quickly became part of the same little group of freshmen.  From the start I admired Trevvor's work-ethic and friendly nature (not to mention his handsome visage).

Chilling together early one morning during Outdoor Action.

The OA group stayed together during the first semester of college, and our numbers ebbed and flowed, but Trevvor and I constantly found ourselves together socially.  We mutually enjoyed each other's company, and soon realized that we had much in common that set us apart from the other students around us.  By the end of that first semester, we were beginning to pair off, and subsequently hear the following question almost daily:  "Are y'all dating yet?"

Fall Break 2006 Road Trip to my grandparents' house

He came home with me for Christmas Break as his flight for PA left from my home-town the following day.  It just so happened that this was the weekend all my family was there for our "Christmas weekend," and we discovered that Trevvor had something in common with five of my close relatives:  their names began with a "Tr-" (Troy, Truitt, Travis, & Tracy) and they shared the last name of "Clark"--my mother's maiden name was "Clark," you see.  I liked to read more into this than I probably should have, haha.
We wrote friendly letters during those weeks apart, and I picked him up from the airport at the end of the break.  He told me later that when he saw me waiting to greet him, he knew at that moment he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me.

Soon after we started dating.

On February 11, 2007, after several serious discussions about our pasts, our present and our future, we entered into a committed relationship.  We knew that (as far as we knew) we were headed towards marriage, and if we realized after prayer and discussion that we were not "meant to be," then we would break things off.  Of course, that never happened.  :)

On his 19th birthday with the soccer Build-a-Bear I made him.  :)

We enjoyed several happy months around campus, loving each other more each day, before we had to go our separate ways for the summer.  I was able to visit him in PA over Memorial Day week, but after that it was three months apart.  On our last day together, he gave me a letter stating his desire to marry me "someday."  I was ecstatic, and all summer we talked about our lives together.

Holding baby bunnies during my PA visit in 2007.

I studied abroad in England during July and part of August, and he was with my family to pick me up when I landed state-side.  That night, he was baptized by my grandfather, surrounded by my mother's family.  The next evening, he asked my parents for permission to marry me "someday."  After much deliberating, they agreed, and the next morning he proposed.

The weekend after our engagement!

Our announcement of engagement wasn't met with happy faces all around:  at the time we were only 19, and our families had their [reasonable] doubts as to our preparedness for marriage.  We assured them that we would wait at least two years before tying the knot, but as the semester progressed, we realized that waiting was simply not necessary nor beneficial.  Our families began to see this too, so by December 2007 we were planning the wedding for the following May.

At a formal soon before our wedding!

It was a hectic semester that almost couldn't go fast enough as we made the reservations, bought the dress, and sent the invitations (not to mention taking classes).  We continued to talk about our future.  We talked about everything:  our opinions, expectations, desires, reservations, doubts... religion, children, finances, houses, cars, media, education, gender roles... everything.


Finally, the day arrived:  May 10, 2008.  It passed in a flurry of excitement and joy. Thanks to the planning and preparation of my dear mother, it was more beautiful than I'd ever imagined.  And at the end of the day, I was Mrs. Trevvor Clark.


I had a lot to learn about marriage and being a wife--and I still have most of it to learn two years later--but those first weeks were so sweet and lovely as we gracefully fumbled our way into married life, united before God and man.


And that's the first few chapters of our love story.  I'm amazed every day that each page just keeps getting better.

Sunday, May 4, 2014

A Mother's Heart

While we were playing with Charles Friday evening at about 7:30, he hurt his wrist.  We had been swinging him and he was loving it!  Laughing, cackling, holding his hands up for more.  And then... he wasn't.  He made a pitiful little "ouch" cry, and toddled over to me.  He sat in my lap holding his arms stiffly, fussing pitifully, for about 20 minutes.  I texted our chiropractor and he agreed to meet us to check him out.  Thank goodness it turned out to be just a little out-of-whack wrist, and with a quick "thump" of the activator, Charles was as good as new.

But during those 45 minutes, my heart ached for my little boy, who was hurting and didn't know why.  He didn't even seem to know what was hurting, exactly, just that something was wrong, and he didn't want to move anything in case the thing that was wrong happened to be what he was moving.  He never screamed, he was really quite calm, just obviously uncomfortable.  I felt it odd that I myself was not hurting too.  My heart hurt for him, but surely our connection was so strong that I would feel his pain in my own body.  But it was just an echo of his hurt, made worse by the fact that I couldn't just kiss it and make it better.

After visiting Doc, we returned home and put Charles straight to bed as it was already well after his bedtime.  I came back down from his room, opened up my Chromebook, and got on Facebook as I chatted with Trevvor.  When I looked back at the screen, at my news-feed, my heart sank.  The first post was the brother of a childhood friend of mine, Rebecca.  He had written that his sister, my friend, had gone to be with the Lord at about 7:30 PM, the same time Charles hurt his wrist.

Rebecca had fought a long, hard battle with cancer--Hodgkins Lymphoma--for over five years.  We saw each other several times over those years, and I kept up with her on Facebook.  I'm sure she had her moments, but when I saw her, she always stayed positive.  She kept joy.  She maintained hope.  She praised God.  She inspired me.

As I wept for her Friday night, I knew that my heart-hurt for Charles' pain was a mere shadow of what Rebecca's mother had experienced these five years and was experiencing right then.  The pain of watching your precious child suffer, fight, and then pass on to the Lord before you, is something I cannot begin to fathom.

Praise God for Rebecca's life, for her testimony during her sickness, and for the hope that we have that we will see her again in God's kingdom.  Such hope is the only thing that can soften the pain of a mother's heart.


Thursday, May 1, 2014

Fifteen Month Word List

Now that he's steady on his feet, Charles' vocabulary has continued to explode.
Here's a word list so far (though keep in mind a lot of these words sound about the same):

Names:
- Mama
- Papa
- Nana (my mom)
- Grandpa (my dad)
- Uncle (Chris)
- Laurrel (Trevvor's sister)
- Pop (my grandfather)

Words:
- box
- ball
- bath
- outside
- shirt
- shoe
- diaper
- nose
- toe
- more: ma
- water: dada
- bottle: bata
- avocado: cada
- dog
- cat
- bird

Onomatopoeias:
- woof
- moo
- neigh
- baa
- elephant sound
- monkey sound
- tweet tweet
- honk honk / beep beep

I think there are more, but this is LONG past due as he's almost *17* months now (it's actually June--I'm just back-dating this haha), so I'll finally go ahead and post!

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