Posterous theme by Cory Watilo

About us

Two hearts, one love

Two promises, one covenant

Two lives, made one in Christ

Praising God for His goodness to us

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This is our story...

She said:

Being a single mother of three active children, I found my time to be very precious. Finding love was the last thing on my mind. But as I was planning my life, God made some of his own and was slowly revealing them to me. At the time I was employed by Bank of Hawaii, working on an important conversion of boh.com. Working hard and long hours left me a small window to spend with my family. My family consists of my parents, my sister, and my kids.

I met Chris in November 2008. During this period, I was working on a project at work that allowed me be familiar with (at the time) a new concept of micro-blogging called Twitter. Since Chris and I were on two different parts of the US, the internet kept us connected as friends. His circle contained many of my friends that I kept in personal contact with so it made it very easy to get along.

I was going through my own personal struggles and Chris stood by as a good friend listening and providing encouragement. I felt that we were on similar boats but rowing at different speeds going in the same direction. He was often my sounding board to often bad decisions. Or just listen as I vented. He was so patient with me. He often made himself available for questions I had about health concerns. Sometimes when I called he would be with a patient and would step out of the room to answer my calls. I appreciated his care to my concerns. That's what I call 24/7 service!

We finally met during a business trip I took to San Francisco in March 2009. This was my first trip to the mainland on my own, no kids, no parents, no friends... no one but little me. This was a big milestone for me. A small town girl in the big city. I was so afraid of freezing to death. As you know, 55 degrees is the lowest for us here in Hawaii. San Francisco at 40 degrees was death to me. Don't laugh but it really was! I remember for a whole week all I could do is think about how cold it was going to be. When I first arrived in my room, I thought it was odd that they would run the A/C in the room. It was freezing. When I woke up the next morning realized it wasn't an A/C in my room, it was a heater! The room was cold because of the temperature outside! I called Chris and told him the funny story. He kept my trip full of laughter and made my time there not as lonely as I dreaded.

I had a best time exploring the city on my first and only free day from training. I signed up for the bus tour. And almost missed it, if you know me, time is irrelvant. I shared my trip with Chris and the rest of Twitter with blogging my experience. That was an adventure! Just imagine those of you on Facebook, posting every detail of your trip with pictures and commentary. It was an incrediable journey. But the most memoriable moments was when I got lost! At the time, I didn't have an iPhone with GPS and I didn't know how to work my Blackberry so Chris was my GPS. I often would get lost and called him to get me on track. Most of the time, he was literally on the phone as he guided me to my destination. It literally felt as he was right there walking with me.

On my last day in San Francisco, Chris made a surprise request, to meet me!  I agreed to meet him after attending a play called "Wicked". Personally, I thought he was crazy to fly all the way down and make arrangements to meet me for a few hours. He flew from Washington to San Francisco and then hailed a cab from the airport to the theater, where I was attending the play. After searching through the crowd on a busy San Francisco street I finally found him... phone attached to his ear! We both kind of smiled at each other knowing that "Hey thats you!" We took the trolley to have a burger meal at In&Out. Big spender huh?! Funny first meal, the resturant's electricity went out as we were ordering. I thought "Lord, is this a sign?! Is it my get away escape moment?" I'm glad I stayed because we got our first taste of "Animal Style" burgers. During our meal together, we talked about ourselves as people who first met but it really felt like meeting an old friend. It wasn't as ackward as I would have thought. During our many talks online or on the phone, we discussed our families, our friends, our careers, and more importantly our kids. Chris was going thru a difficult time with his kids. Having three of my own, I tried to help him see the light in the dark tunnel and reminded him of God's greater plan for his life. 

Long story short, our friendship blossomed over the next six months. He came to visit me in the summer months while he was on vacation. It was in November 2009, we made the move to make our friendship into a love story. Ever since then we both have flown, he more than me, thousands of miles in the air back and forth from Washington to Hawaii. He literally had to grow wings to be with me. It was like San Francisco all over again. Whether he was here in Hawaii or in Washington, we were close as two could be.

Although we have our flaws and past mistakes, it was our strengths that bonded us. Our friendship grew into love and our faith grew as we grew closer. Jesus bonded us together with our parallel life stories but he had a plan for our lives to cross. WIth his love, we were able to move mountains and start our healing process. God had blessed us with each other and with the peace of knowing his love for us. Determined to keep moving forward, we made a commitment to each other to be each other's Best Friend.

In April 2010, Chris asked me to marry him on Easter Sunday at my Mom's house. Clueless to what was to take place that day. We had just finished hiding all the eggs for the kids. He announced that he hid an egg for me to search and find. He hid the engagement ring in a hot pink egg and made me hunt for it. Little did he know I knew he had the egg in his jeans pocket all along! But little did I know that it was an engagement ring and he was about to propose. As I confidently pull the egg from his pants pocket and opened it, a shiny metal object fell out. I was shocked. As I saw the shiny metal flash, I quickly grabbed it and shoved it back into the egg and made him take it back. He quickly got on his knees and asked me to marry him. Before I answered him, I asked him to ask my kids for their blessings. As they are part of me, we come as a package deal. The kids gave him their blessings along with my parents. And so this story continues as we prepare for our wedding day. It will be a day God brings not only Chris and I together but also two groups of childen, and families and friends in celebrating what God has made good.

He said:

Words that come to mind when describing my relationship with Bel are traveling, adventurous, patient and fulfilled.  From the first moment I met her, my life has never been the same.  My life has been full of adventures and fulfillment of a lifetime.  We shared the love of our savior Jesus Christ, our children, adventure, and traveling.  I have been truly blessed to have met Bel and given the opportunity to spend the rest of our adventurous life together.  We are also blessed with the most wonderful ‘Brady Bunch’ kids. I am humbled by God for giving me the best second chance in life beyond what I could ever imagine. 

You can say that we met through friends.  We shared friends on the popular social network, Twitter.  She is the unique one with the sideway profile picture.  That’s the @bella456 for you.  We were casual friends just sharing about life, our jobs, and our kids.  She was unique because she was ‘real’, sincere and showed that she care. She was a good listener.  She listened to me about issues I was battling for my kids as I offered some free medical advices in return, with running tabs. 

I took the chance of a lifetime doing something that I would never dream of doing.  I flew to San Francisco to meet Bel while she was on her business trip in March 2009.  We talked about her trip and I tried to help her plan her itinerary.  I was her remote GPS from my office in Washington State while she was gallivanting in San Francisco.  I knew that I had to meet her and that I could not let this opportunity passes by.  Meeting Bel after ‘The Wicked’ play, we shared a trolley ride and the famous ‘animal style’ In & Out burgers that evening.  We spent a wonderful day together touring the Fishermen Wharf before parting.  We both were brave and had our first adventurous trip with the hope of a blossoming friendship.

Over the next 8 months I have spent more time in the air than on the ground.  It seemed like I spent half of my time in Hawaii where my heart was.  We spent a lot of time talking and sharing stories of our life.  We helped each others learned about faith, trust, healing and forgiveness.  In addition to traveling and being adventurous, I had to practice patience.  I learned a lot about myself and that the most important thing in my life is family.  Bel logged many Hawaiian Airlines miles as well.  There were a lot of firsts for both of us.  We traveled to Las Vegas, Maui, Seattle, Vancouver BC, and Dallas.

Our first ‘anniversary’ was a lovely dinner at Alan Wong’s restaurant.  I had told the waiter that it was our anniversary so that we could get free ice cream and dessert.  Bel was surprised when the dessert was served with ‘Happy Anniversary Marebel & Chris’ but she thoroughly enjoyed the chocolate ice cream.  The best part of the evening was our ‘first kiss’ after a long stroll on Waikiki beach.  Bel left her phone on her car seat and I had to run from the beach to the Sheraton Waikiki parking garage to retrieve the phone.  In return I got to give her a peck on her cheek.  So romantic right!

By November 2009, we had one of our most adventurous trips, spending the weekend in Maui.  We camped out at the base of Haleakala and then watched the most beautiful sunrise together.  Knowing Bel, you know it was totally out of her comfort zone.  But we had one of the best weekends together.  I knew I was deeply in love with the most wonderful woman.  We had our ‘significant ramification’ moment and made a commitment to each other on this trip at Mama’s Fish House.  There’s so much more to tell about this weekend and so little room to write about it.

On Easter of 2010 I was prepared to commit the rest of my life to Bel.  I had found the most beautiful engagement ring, with the help of Jim Demers.  I planned so many ways to propose to Bel and I was so nervous.  The plan was somewhat derailed by constant pouring rain all day.  So the Easter egg was going to be my method of the surprised proposal.  She had the biggest and most beautiful ‘Bel Bel’ smile when she found the ring in the ‘special’ Easter egg. But I didn’t get my answer.  I had to ask Noel, Kekoa and Isaiah as well.  Let me tell you about patience and severe anxiety.  The kids were very gracious and kind.  They have accepted me, my proposal to their mom and blessed our wedding plan.  That’s not the end of the story.  I also asked Bel’s parents that day.  Bel’s dad is one of the nicest and most sincere men I have ever met.  He was completely silent with a stern look when I ask them for their blessing.  Let me tell you about the anxiety in the pit of your stomach.  In the end they blessed our wedding plan and we had a wonderful BBQ that evening. 

Since that day, our lives have continued to be a whirlwind of more adventures, traveling, healing, forgiveness and most of all full of blessings from our Heavenly Father.