Baby Boy #4 is 6 weeks old...how did I get here?

...on June 12th, 2009 I gave birth to my fourth beautiful baby boy Coltan. Who knew that I would be a married mother of four boys? For anyone who knew me before I got married, they never would have thought this. Even my parents thought I would probably just have a career, no kids.


....and now, after 9 years of marriage, I have four boys. Ethan turned 8 on July 19th, Tristan turned 5 on June 23rd and Ronan turned 2 on July 9th.


...but let's back up a bit..




...maybe I should start at the beginning...


My life change on May 10th, 1999. That is the day that I found Christopher Charles Cook in the Hotmail Personal Ads. Yes, I will say it. I found him while looking through the personals!


And why was I in there? On the outside, I seemed like an extremely personable, social and happy person. Inside, I was extremely disappointed with where I was in life. I was 23, living at home for the summer to go back to school in the fall, working with a maintenance crew on our local golf course and working as a waitress.


Yet, just two years prior I was working for the newspaper covering the golf course as a recent journalism graduate from SAIT.


Literally, I felt like I was going no where. I had no relationship prospects, most of my friends were married, had kids or were in steady relationships at least. Even my sisters were. How sad is it when you are the oldest and you can't have a decent relationship?


So I started browsing online. It was a joke really. The ads were funny. Even my mom thought so. There were guys looking for short term relationships, long term relationships...just some real weirdos. It was good for a laugh. Then I came across this "hang-out" ad. A guy in Arizona, saying he was new to the area and was looking for someone to hang out with. I was intrigued by his smile and his ad so I sent him an email, even though I was no where near Arizona.


I gave him the cheezy line of "..so I have never done this before but thought I would drop you a line..." Obviously it was true (not that he knew that) and he ended being the first and ONLY ad that I ever responded to!


Within one week, we were emailing eachother five times a day. I would come home for lunch from the golf course just to check my email. At first, it was nothing romantic. It was just intriguing to get to know each other. So different from other people I knew. I felt a connection just emailing him and getting to know him through this non-conventional way.


11 days after the first email was the first phone call and less than a week after the first phone call, he booked a plane ticket to Canada to meet me. For him, this was risky. Me, not so much. Why do I say that considering I am the girl? Well, he was flying to another country to meet a girl he still had not seen a picture of! A little crazy on his part. Luckily, I am not too hard on the eyes, so people tell me.


But, I will never forget why he said he did this. "I have missed out on too many opportunities in my life and I was not about to miss another."


How could I not fall in love with him?


He arrived at the Edmonton International Airport on June 16th, 1999 at 3:15 pm. I had never been more nervous in my life than waiting in that terminal for him to walk through those doors. And don't worry, by then, he had seen a pic of me! I was wearing a light and airy spaghetti strapped sundress with small purple flowers (courtesy of my friend Nicole) and nervously pacing, heart racing as the doors kept opening and still no Chris.


Then, out walks this clean shaven, blond haired, blue-eyed All American guy, wearing jean shorts and a light green polo shirt. We locked eyes and I knew from that moment he was the guy I was going to marry.


One year and one day later on June 17th, 2000 we were married in my hometown of Whitecourt, Alberta.


But that was the past...that was how we started...how are we doing now? That is what this blog is all about. How do we handle four boys? How do we handle two jobs? How do we handle each other's opposing personalities? Let me tell you, it is not easy, but we do it.


Currently, it is July 27th, 2009..nine years later...four kids later...four moves later.... what does our future hold?