The Backstory

It occurs to me that some of you may not know exactly what prompted us to move down here in the first place, so here’s the story as told in third person format (bear with me; it’s a bit convoluted):

Ahem…
Once upon a time, there was a girl named Heather. Heather grew up in Fort Collins, Colorado, and decided to go to New Zealand to round out her studies. While there, she met a young kiwi fellow named Jacob, and after a reasonable course of time (and getting to know each other) they decided to get married. The wedding took place in Fort Collins and Jacob’s family flew over to attend - including one of his brothers, Tim, along with Tim's lovely wife Gina.

Tim and Gina, circa a few months ago with our nephew-in-Christ Jobe


Now Tim and Gina were contemplating what Kiwis call an OE and this stands for Overseas Experience, where you travel abroad and see the world for a length of time, usually around a year (and as New Zealand is a small island nation, going anywhere at all means crossing some large body of water, hence the “Overseas” part). They found that they enjoyed Fort Collins SO much, they wanted to come back and spend the better part of their OE there.

When they got to Colorado, they found that they were a bit lonely, so they decided to do the healthy, well-adjusted thing and get out there and make some friends. To that end, they called a number of local recreational soccer teams to join up. They were getting well down the list alphabetically before a team organizer (from the Yellowjackets) finally got back to them, and they signed on and started attending practices and games. While on the team, they noticed one talented player named Chad, who was so kind and gentlemanly, that they were just sure he must be a Christian. They got to know Chad a little bit, and found that this capital fellow, WAS in fact a Christian (as are they), and he invited them to come to church with him so they could meet his lovely wife (who had just returned from traveling around Europe) and start attending if they liked. They took him up on his offer, and they got to be good friends with Chad, his lovely wife Charity, and many of their friends.

Even after they moved into the mountains to work at a ski resort, Chad and Charity continued to visit them, snowboarding, hanging out, and having an amazing Christmas in the snow. Then one evening while they were all gathered with several friends for New Years, Chad remarked to Charity that they should/would move to New Zealand themselves once Tim & Gina moved home. Charity said to him, “Well, why not?” And so it was, 11 months later, that they flew off into the sunset to the wilds of the South Pacific, where they remain to this day. And all because of a girl named Heather…