Greetings from the McConnell household! I (Melissa) am so excited to start this new endeavor of keeping in touch with friends and family about our family! This idea was born about two years ago but at the time I wasn't sure what I was doing (well, I guess I don't really know much more now). I started a blog but didn't really do anything with it. However, we are BACK in business again! :-) There are so many times that I think, "I need to share this but I don't have time to email 30 different people about this!" that I figure this is the best way to keep in touch and share the happenings in the McConnell household! :-)
I guess the best way to start is to briefly introduce the family to you and then we can progress from there!
Rich and I met in Hawaii in 2005 when he was stationed at the Kaneohe Bay Marine Corps base. He began to attend our church, Koolau Baptist Church, where I was a full time junior high teacher. THAT was not the beginning of our story, though. :-) We would talk very briefly but he was quiet and shy, I was busy and outspoken, and we didn't really click. Time marched on. In the summer of 2006 I spent my summer in Nairobi, Kenya, with a dear friend I had grown up with. We traveled around Nairobi and the outlying areas, working and teaching in orphanages and public schools. It was an extremely memorable summer, and I thought that within a few years, I'd be back there to live. The following summer, I decided to stay in Hawaii instead of traveling home for the duration of the summer like I always had. I picked up extra work as a janitor for our small Christian school and church. The rest of the teachers all went home. I actually loved it. I'd work from 7 a.m. to around 3 p.m., tutor a few kids in between, but spent the day stripping old wax off of floors, resurfacing floors, cleaning carpets, and blaring my classical music and Broadway tunes. A familiar quiet, shy man began to show up unexpectedly...with Starbucks in hand. Enter Rich. :-) Apparently he had an interest in me and had approached my boss/principal about how to best get to know me. He said, "Talk to her, work with her, and bring her Starbucks." Worked like a charm. I honestly didn't know what to do with him at first. I'm the OPPOSITE of most flirty girls. I don't play those games so I just stand back and think, "Impress me. Bring it. I dare you." We began to talk about just anything, then began to share our family backgrounds, what we wanted to do in life, etc... Rich, while proud to be a Marine, hated life on base and couldn't stand the guys he worked with and bunked with. So, as a means of escape from his 24 on/48 off duty schedule, he'd come to the church and do odd jobs just to be off base and busy. I found my cleaning buddy. :-) Our first date...after an EIGHT HOUR PHONE CONVERSATION that lasted ALL NIGHT (took him that long to ask me out!) was on Labor Day and I still remember sitting outside of Cold Stone Creamery in Kaneohe, Hawaii, looking at pictures of his family reunion on his laptop.
Things progressed quickly. In December, he flew home to meet my family and ask for my hand in marriage. He proposed the day after Christmas, at sunset, in NYC at Rockefeller Center. One thing you need to know about me - I love NYC more than any other city in the U.S. If I had my pick, I'd live there right now. So to be asked to be married in my most favorite place - brownie points. ;-) It was PACKED that night and I could tell he was really nervous being around that many people. As he proposed, everyone around us stopped and stared, then clapped when I said yes and started snapping pictures. :-) Our engagement photo was taken by a complete stranger. :-) The awesome part - as soon as he proposed and I said, "Yes!" the Christmas music, which played on the hour, started up with "Carol of the Bells" and the light show began. Pretty awesome! :-)
Rich had to leave soon after to get back to Hawaii and back to his duties as a weather man near the airstrip on base. I arrived back on the island on January 1st. We decided, as a spur of the moment thing, to get married January 2nd. So, he picked me up on his motorcycle (my first time riding one for that long of a period of time!), we drove to Honolulu, got the paperwork filled out, ran over to a photo shop that serves as a Justice of the Peace on their lunch hour (no joke!), got married by a judge...and that was it! :-) We thought FOR SURE that it wouldn't be that easy but since it all worked out, we went with it! We had planned on getting the legal marriage so that Rich could start earning more benefits as a married marine, as well as get him off base and into off-base housing. But, as time went on (we kept it a secret to almost everyone), we decided that we really DIDN'T want a big fancy wedding. I'm not one of those girls that dreamed of her wedding all of her life. I hate that kind of stuff. We were advised (not wisely, I might add) to keep our wedding a secret by our pastor and then have a ceremony a few months later. We had our ceremony on the beach on April 13th of that year. Looking back - the only thing I would have changed, to be honest, is that we would have just told everyone right away, "We got married." Keeping it a secret wasn't wise, and I would have preferred to just move on with life, but that was the counsel we received and I was afraid that I'd somehow lose my job. It is what it is and it makes for a unique story, I guess. :-) So - THAT is our wedding story! ;-)
We postponed our honeymoon until the summer when I'd be off of school, and we'd have more time to go somewhere. We decided to take a 7 day cruise of the Hawaiian islands. HIGHLY recommend it - it's too hard to just island hop and it gets expensive. The cruise was great, we got an AWESOME discount for booking at the last minute, and we got to see every island. It was truly wonderful. :-)
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| May 2007, taken at one of my senior's graduation parties |
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