I was always told I had a beautiful voice when I was young, but never really aspired to do a lot of singing until my mom got me involved in our church choir when I was in middle school. My confidence built as many people complimented me on my singing skills. I think the southern accent had something to do with it :).
I was always quite athletic and wanted to be involved with sports from a young age.
After I graduated from the University of Georgia with a BSEd in Kinesiology, my life adventure took me to Tuscaloosa Alabama where I worked as a trainer assistant for the Crimson Tide football team. This was a lot of fun, but after a decade of this relatively hard life, I decided to get more involved with my spiritual life again and started getting involved with a local church called Church of the Highlands.
It was a wonderful experience and I met many good people there, many of which my husband and I are still good friends with. At the time my husband was a civil engineer at MSW Engineering.
Eventually he got a promotion opportunity but we needed to move to Richmond Va if he was going to take it. We were both uneasy but spent a week up there and enjoyed the area so we decided to take a chance. Richmond is a medium size city with a lot of things to do but not quite the traffic and chaos of a really big city. The James River runs through the middle of the city and was a great place to kayak and swim. There are lots of museums, restaurants, concerts, and fun things to do. It was a great place to spend a few years, though I did miss Tuscaloosa a lot, and traveled down there to visit old friends from time to time. In Richmond we did find a wonderful church family and met an awful lot of good people. I joined the large choir and really enjoyed the music. The choir director, whose two young children I babysat for and who also owns a cleaning service, and my husbands best friend who owns an insulation company were some of our closest friends. We spent a lot of time playing cards, doing Bible studies, and camping and hiking with these families.
Over time one of my husbands contacts and close friends suggested he look into an opportunity at Packard Engineering in Kansas City. Here we go again. I was extremely reluctant to leave our wonderful family and friends in Richmond and tried to think of as many excuses as I could to prevent the move, however an offer was made and it was too good to pass up so we packed up and moved.
Initially it was rough getting settled in a city of this size. We wanted to stay involved in the church and tried a couple before eventually finding one called the Community Christian Church, which we felt very comfortable with and so it became our church home. There we met Bryan, the pastor, and developed a wonderful relationship with him.
As the church grew, Bryan floated the idea of opening a location in another city, and my heart nearly exploded when my husband and I thought that maybe our old stomping grounds back in Richmond might work. It seemed like a long shot, but after our study (of which I was an integral part 😉 ), we concluded the area would work out quite well.
The notion of selling and moving again was painful, but we kept the end game in mind, reunited with our old friends, found a new home, and made the move. We were both heavily involved in the construction of the new church building and grounds. It was one of the most satisfying things I have ever done.