Aaron's Caring Bridge site.
Aaron was born on his parent's bed in Brookwood, Alabama and his dad held him during the ambulance ride to the hospital afterwards. He was the second of three boys to Jack and Brenda (Matt and Adam being the oldest and youngest). His family ultimately settled in Alexandria, Alabama when Jack went from bank president to Methodist preacher. Aaron graduated high school and went to college for three years before signing up with the Air Force to work in Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD). He graduated EOD school at Eglin in 2001, just weeks before 9/11. He then left for Aviano, Italy where he was stationed for nearly five years. He had dozens of training, recovery, and security details all over the world, along with a deployment during the initial surge in Iraq. In 2005, he left the Air Force to join the Army and continue his work in EOD. He was sent to Fort Stewart, GA where he deployed for 15 months to Iraq from 2006-2008.
And this is where I enter the picture, but first a little on me and where I come from, right? Born to Theresa and Robert, I was also the second of three but their only girl (linking Robbie and Jonathan). I was born and raised in Birmingham, Alabama. My dad passed away in 1994 when I was 11 after my parents' divorce. My mom remarried and Steve has been my stepdad for a longer amount of time than my dad was present. Three kids grew to four with his son becoming the new youngest. Growing up, I took ballet classes for years and drove a 1965 Mustang when I was 18. I kept a lot of journals I am now scared to read because I was a pretty normal, emotional, boy-crazy teenage girl. At 20, I moved to Tuscaloosa to give the University of Alabama a shot. It didn't really work out, but I had some interesting jobs, met some great people I still keep up with today, and learned that a degree in Religious Studies won't get you far. So I stopped flip-flopping and moved to the Atlanta area in the summer of 2007, where I met even more great people and worked a few more jobs. Mainly, I was really broke a lot of the time but still managed to enjoy myself and the second half of my 20s.
And in October of 2008, I met Aaron at an Irish pub. He had one night left after attending his younger brother's wedding and I was drinking Guinness, running around with short red hair and being social. I think I was helping out with a breast cancer fundraiser. Aaron asked the bartender who I was and wa-la: we talked, danced, drank, ate at Waffle House, kissed, and kept in touch for six months. I don't how know much of it was the beer talking, but Aaron told me I was special the night we met, and that I "scared" him. He came back to the South 6 months later, in the spring of 2009, for an Army course in Huntsville which is just a few hours from Atlanta. We began to date over the two months he was nearby. We ended his stay here with the "I love you" exchange over the phone, as he was boarding his plane back to Germany.
That fall, he flew me to Germany and took me across Europe for two weeks and we ended it with a weekend in NYC. We knew we were getting married, and came to that decision a month later. I went back to Germany for Christmas and he gave me a ring. We were married on Easter Sunday in 2010 (April 4th) at a fishing club in Prattville, Alabama. I went back to Germany with him for four months, and we eventually made our way to Fort Drum that September. But the story had not even begun...
