To gain a full understanding of Kinkmas we have to go all the way back to September of 2002. That's when I first received the challenge that I couldn't pass up, being the competitor I am. A cute and fiesty brown-eyed girl told me after church one day that she would never date me and certainly never marry me. I have never been one to walk away from a challenge, especially not when the gauntlet had been laid down in such simple terms. A few weeks later, we were dating. The rest became non-fiction.
The fiesty brown-eyed girl was Jessica Erin Stanford, who was beginning a victory lap at my beloved Oklahoma State University and I was starting my first year in graduate school. I was in love.
We had our ups and downs in three years of dating, but we loved each other. On April 2, 2005, I asked Jes to marry me standing outside of Perkins Chapel at SMU, the same chapel we were married in on December 17 of the same year. Mission Accomplished for me, not George W.
Our first home was a garage apartment in Fort Worth, TX, which consisted of two rooms. Jes was teaching in Dallas and I was doing youth ministry in Forth Worth for K-Life. We had so many great times there in the place we lovingly called "The Loft." We left when I realized I still had the desire to coach and so we could be closer to Jes's job.
In June of 2007, we moved to a far corner of Highland Park and to live in a little condo that had more than two rooms. We could walk to Whole Foods and Chuy's if we got really adventurous. The "ARC" (Active Retirement Community) was a year and a half of awesomeness and more growth than either of us ever imagined.
In the fall of 2007, I had my first coaching and teaching opportunity at RL Turner High School in Carrollton, TX. Within the first two weeks of school, I knew that Turner was not a long-term opportunity for me. And, after four years of teaching, Jes decided to leave the classroom to go back to school.
I landed the next year at Legacy Christian Academy in Frisco, TX, while Jes started back to school at UT Dallas to pursue a photography degree. I was loving where I was while Jessica's experience left much to be desired. We had moved to Richardson, TX, and were living in a duplex on El Estado. While we had great neighbors, the neighborhood left much to be desired. One of my favorite memories is of driving down the street and reminding the neighborhood to "stay classy."
Jes and I lived on El Estado for almost two years when we decided, after numerous difficulties with landlords, heat, gas and carbon monoxide leaks, that we were ready for our own home. So commenced The Great Home search of 2010. We searched high and low for the perfect house in Richardson and fell in love with the house on James St. We were home.
Naturally, having a home, I started thinking about filling it with us in miniature. However, Jes had been told, by a number of physicians, that conception was going to be a difficult path for us. Jessica's ovaries were covered in cysts and did not release eggs. Our discussions on bringing children into our home were sometimes difficult, as was pondering how "far" we would go to have biological children. In the end, we trusted that we serve a big God who knows us, loves us and has a plan for us. We decided to trust in His plan for our family and then made plans of our own to start the conception process in the fall of 2009, hoping to bring home a baby in the summer of 2010.
Apparently our plans were not the best plans...
