The Initiation

It is hard to believe that our family originated 22 years ago. I guess I should explain...Alan and I met when we were 12 years old at Camp Sumatanga. It is a United Methodist Church Camp in Gallant, Alabama. It is a truly wonderful place, and if you ever get the chance to go - you should! Now, back to the part about how our family came to be. We actually did not really like each other at first. I will spare you all of the boring details, but we grew up at opposite ends of the state. We wrote letters and called occasionally. We even saw each other a few times as we got a little older at events when he would be near my hometown or something. However, Music & Arts Week (or choir camp as we called it back then) was our week to see each other each summer. The summer we turned 15, a certain spark ignited for us. When we were 16, he came to Florence for my junior/senior prom. During college, I went to BSC and went to Wallace then Alabama then back to Dothan. We did not keep up.

Thanks to a fateful email from his brother, we ended up reconnecting the beginning of February 1997. We began dating again, and were engaged quickly. I am sure he would tell the story with a more dramatic flare, but oh well. In August, we were married. We never lived in the same city until 2 months before we were married (just a funny fact about us).

3 years later, our first precious addition arrived. Savannah Lynn Watson was born on October 9, 2000. Although she was 3 weeks early, she took her time getting here once I went into labor (3 days of misery). That is a whole different post...

In March of 2003, Alan McLain Watson, Jr. was born. He was 4 weeks early, and his lungs were not fully developed. After 10 days in the NICU at Baptist Hospital in Nashville, we proudly brought him home to Gallatin (where we were living at the time). We were so relieved that he had healed enough to be out of the "incubator" and off of the oxygen. That was truly one of the most emotionally draining experiences of our lives.

Fast forward to 2009, and we are a busy family of four living, working, playing and praying in lower Alabama. We do the best that we can to survive what life throws our way.