Division Champions!

Anna's soccer team has sailed throught their fall season with 10 wins, 2 losses and 2 ties, to become the division champions!!! These girls are amazing!! Here they are proudly displaying their medal. Go Rage!!

Busy kids, busy parents...

This has been our life in the past few months, and as exciting as it is to see our children thrive and develop in their activities, we are looking forward to some rest and relaxation!!! A couple more soccer games and a few more meets until we can all put our feet up!! In the meantime, enjoy the pictures!!

Halloween!!

We were really lucky with the weather, this year... It stopped raining earlier in the afternoon, and the weather wasn't cold!! The kids had a blast trick or treating around the neighborhood, and we had our good share of visitors!!! The littlest ones were quite scared to come up to the porch, since this is what was greeting them (not exactly small child friendly...)!

Anna was dressed in a typical german outfit, Clara was a tree fairy and Rita had two costumes, a moroccan one and a rag doll one. Alex was, obviously, saving the world from evil as a Power Ranger!!

How it all started...

Sixteen years ago, I said "I do" to the love of my life!! Mark is, without a shadow of a doubt, the sweetest, most caring, respectful, considerate, funny, loving, gorgeous man ever!!! And he is mine...

The day I met him was the day my life changed forever...

I had been married once before, when I was only 22... This marriage, which only lasted 3 years, was a complete disaster!! Deep in my heart, I knew that, one day, I would meet someone who would treat me the way I felt I deserved to be treated, someone who would love me just the way I was...

After my divorce, I shared an apartment with a good friend of mine for a few years. I decided to go to Cambridge, England for a three-month intensive course in english, and then enrolled in College (in Lisbon) to get my MBA. My friend and roommate, whose name was also Isabel (go figure!!), worked at the American Embassy in Lisbon. She would take me to all their parties, especially the TGIF's hosted by the Marines. I became really good friends with many of them, and it was one of them, Alex, who set me up with Mark just a week after he arrived. Mark had been assigned to the Embassy as a Marine Security Guard Detachment Commander. He was single (and handsome!), so Alex believed we would be a good match!! He was right... I met Mark for the first time at the door of a restaurant on our set up blind date... I was instantly attracted to him...!! But we were not alone!! There were about eight other Marines and Mark's Commanding Officer!! The entire evening my sweet man had to juggle being courteous to his boss and paying attention to me!! We had a great time, the connection was instant, and from that moment on we were inseparable!!! Mark tells me he knew, that night, that he wanted to marry me!!!

Mark's sweet, caring ways, quickly found their way into my heart, I felt like I had finally found what I had been looking for, and I felt like the luckiest girl alive!!!! When he proposed to me, during the Marine Corps Ball, all I could say was "...oh...my...God...!!!". But what he really wanted to hear was YES...!! "Yes!", I said...

For the love of this man, I left my family, my career, my country, but not even for a second do I think that was a high price to pay... I knew that, as long as we had each other, life would feel right and complete...!! It wasn't easy, but is was so worth it!! Together, through long deployments, numerous moves, baby after baby, life in London, life in Morocco, life after the Marine Corps....

Thank you, my love, for loving me unconditionally, for being my best friend, for treating me like a queen, for the sparkles in your eyes when you look at me, for making me laugh, for those long daily hugs, for being the best dad ever, for listening to all my nagging, for still calling me beautiful, for all the hot chocolates, for loving Portugal, for loving octopus(!), for letting me turn our living room into a flea market, for working so hard, for being "cool" with a rose covered bedroom, for your sweet kisses, for your sweet love, for CHOOSING ME!!!