About Us

Sunshine on our wedding day 

Background

The story about us and our special love for each other is truly amazing . We first came to know of each other at work on June 9, 2000. 

It's scary to think that we might never have met. Shawna was supposed to be working at another job for a company downtown, but that fell through. I was going to leave eHelp to accept a better salary at Motiva just before she started working there. As fate would have it, eHelp bested Motiva's offer, and I decided to stay there. I am sooooo thankful that I did! Otherwise I never would have met my SoulMate .

Signing for the marriage license 

How we met

Friday, June 9, 2000. Little did I know that would be the day I'd meet the girl I'd spend the rest of my life with. I received a funny email from a friend and sent it on to my friends at eHelp in Tech Support, Customer Service, and R&D (where I currently worked). 

Tracy was the Supervisor in Customer Service, and when she got the email from me she forwarded it on to a bunch of people in Customer Service. However, Tracy accidentally left me in the address list so I got included in the replies to the email. The replies started to get silly so I replied to all with a few comedy sound clips from some movies. 

Shawna was the ONLY ONE who responded back and said "HAHAHA those were great!". I responded back "It's good to see SOMEONE has good taste around here!"  

Over the next couple of weeks we sent each other emails and got to know each other much better. We found out we had similar likes and dislikes (movies, music, TV shows, etc) and had similar goals and were a lot alike in that we are both sensitive and try to get along with everyone.

The ceremony begins!

Lunch?

After a very short amount of time I realized I was really starting to like Shawna a lot and she had already become a really great friend. I could also tell from subtle things she said that she felt the same way.

The funny thing is I had no idea what she looked like! I knew she was the receptionist, however I never went to the First Floor - I always took the elevator straight from the parking garage to the Second Floor, so I never saw her. And since she was temporary at the time, her picture wasn't on the intranet (eHelp kept pictures of all its employees there).

However, she knew what I looked like. I found out later that after we started getting closer she looked up my picture on the intranet.

I decided to ask her out. I loved her personality so much that I just didn't care what she looked like, and anyway it's always cool to have another good friend to hang around with.

I asked her if she would like to go for a walk on the beach at lunch with me (eHelp was about 2 blocks from the ocean). She accepted! We had a great time and I asked if we could do it again soon and we setup another lunch date.

Matthew putting on Shawna's ring

The next few months...

As we got to know each other better and better at lunch, we got closer and closer and our love for each other began to grow. We couldn't get enough of each other (we still can't) and we began to meet before work each day. I would meet her at her car and walk with her to work or drive her in when the weather was bad. We also began meeting at her breaks and after work.

Soon even that wasn't enough. We began to see each other at night a couple nights a week and we began spending most of the weekends together.

We worked together, we emailed and chatted together during the day. We hung out together on breaks. We went to lunch together every day. We met before and after work each day. We went out at night a couple nights during the week. When we didn't go out at night we called each other. We hung out together the majority of time during the weekend. We were inseparable. We could never spend enough time together, and we still feel the same today. I never thought I could be around someone that much, and Shawna felt exactly the same way. Wow were we wrong. It still feels like the first time every day

Shawna putting on Matthew's ring

The next step

Eventually it got to the point that we really began to miss each other whenever we weren't together, even when we had just spent time together. We both felt that we weren't complete without the other. It was like we were two halves to the same whole. It was as if something from our lives was missing when the other wasn't around.

We decided to move in together. We moved in together on October 21, 2000 .

It was just as awesome as we thought it could be. We had some great times living in Pacific Beach together. It was like living with a combination best friend/SoulMate. We were both very attracted to each other mentally and physically, and we loved each other's personality. We just loved being together. Shawna makes everything fun, even mundane stuff like food shopping and laundry!

Matthew and Shawna on moving day

We start trying...

We had planned on getting married soon, and had even talked about starting a family together. Back at eHelp, our mutual friends were telling us how they'd been trying for awhile and still they hadn't gotten pregnant.

We thought, what if it takes us a long time to have a baby? We were worried too much time would pass and we still wanted to be young by the time we had all our children so we started trying to conceive in January of 2001.

Shawna got pregnant in February of 2001. Hard time conceiving? HA! Were we wrong!

 
Our wedding kiss

The beginning!

We were married on October 15, 2001. Our little bundle of joy arrived on October 26, 2001. We plan on having at least one more child in the future.

Life is great with Shawna. I love waking up to her every morning and going to sleep next to her at night.

I remember when we first started seeing each other at our work. No one understood how much in love with each other we were. We tried to keep a low profile in the beginning, but the way we looked at each other always gave it away. My friends and co-workers couldn't understand why we needed to see each other all the time. I still don't think they fully understand what we have.

I had heard the term "movie love" or "storybook love" before. I didn't realize it existed in real life. How awesome it was to have that love walk around the hallway corner and straight into my office and my life that first lunch date.

"Matthew?"

"Shawna? Hi! Ready to go to lunch?"

Sunset on our wedding day