Hello and thank you for visiting my blog! Read on to find out more about me!
I was born and raised in Littleton, Colorado. I have two wonderful parents (Jeff and Carol), an older brother (Doug) and a twin sister (Kelly). My brother is married to an amazing woman, Meagan. He is a pilot in the Air Force and will be stationed in Washington later this fall. My sister lives and works in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Although we are all spread out we manage to stay in touch.
We had quite a few pets growing up – birds, dogs and even a pet rat! I absolutely LOVE dogs and cannot wait to get one of my own someday when I have a yard. My favorite pet growing up was a dachshund named Skippy. When I was about 5 years old, I wanted her to sleep with me at night. My parents thought I was too little to pick her up and put her on the bed so they told me I would have to sleep on the floor with her. So that's exactly what I did – I slept on the floor with her every night until I was about 11 or 12. I tried putting her in bed one time and she did NOT like it. We were best buds.
Growing up, my family and I went to church almost every Sunday. It was hard not to go since we lived less than a mile away. Literally. The church is at the top of our street. I remember wanting to sit next to my grandma as a kid during church because she would scratch my back and it would always make me fall asleep. I don't know how many sermons I slept through as a kid. As I got older I became more involved with our Youth Group. Since my brother is only a year and a half older than Kelly and I, he did his best not to cross paths with us at Youth Group. Kelly and I pretty much stuck together like glue at Youth Group. This was one of the few places in life where we would actually hang out together – outside of church we opted to be completely independent of one another. We wanted to be seen as individuals and not twins/each other's best friend because that was not who we were.
For a long time Youth Group was just another activity to go to and not a place where my faith was growing or being challenged. It wasn't until my Junior year of highschool that I had a reality check on my life. Doug had just left for college and Kelly left to go to France for a year of foreign exchange. For the first time in my life I was an only child. I no longer could blame anything on anyone else (except the dog), and more importantly I could no longer hide behind my sister's faith. Up until this point I did not realize how little faith I had of my own. I was so used to hiding behind her faith that I did not know what I actually believed. For a while I retracted from Youth Group activities and became consumed with my part time job, school and band. I don't remember what the turning point was when I realized that my friends and relationships at church were more sustaining than those elsewhere. But the bottom line is that there was a turning point. I started to re-prioiritze my life and began hanging out with frends in Youth Group. There were about 4 or 5 us that formed a pretty tight bond and would hang out on a regular occasion.
For the first time in my life I felt like people were actually getting to know me for who I was – Aimee. I have been a twin all my life so I have never known what it is like to be an individual and be completely unique. Kelly and I are identical so people have always had a hard time telling us apart. Although we never dressed alike, had different hair cuts and were involved in different activities, people would get us confused ALL the time. With Kelly gone for a year, I got to experience life as a "singletwin" (a.k.a not a twin). I totally just made that word up by the way. So the bottom line is that I was able to fgure out who I was for who I am, what I believe, and what I think and feel in life. It was during this year that I knew for sure that I wanted to go to a different college than Kelly. Not because I didn't like her, but because I enjoyed getting to spread my wings and find out who I was.
Flash forward to the college years… I went to Abilene Christian University in the fall of 2005. I remember thinking "what the heck have I gotten myself in to!?" as I drove around Abilene. It was brown, flat, dry and ugly. Quite a difference from what I was used to in Colorado. But Abilene and its "scenery" grew on me. I studied Marketing whilst at college, joined a sorority (or as we like to call them at ACU "social clubs"), and worked hard to be a great student and have a stellar resume. It was my goal to have multiple job offers by the time I graduated. However, the market took a dive during my senior year of college. Let's just say that 2009 was not the best time to graduate and expect to have multiple job offers. But by the grace of God, I landed a wonderful first job out of college and moved to Arlington. I worked for an IT consulting company for a little over a year and a half before I moved to Plano in 2011 to start working for an end-to-end eCommerce company in Plano. (I am still residing in Plano as of this posting, but I no longer work for the eCommere company.)
So to sum it all up, college was definitely a lot of fun, but I never really got plugged in to a church during those 4 years. I "church shopped" a lot but never really settled down at any one place. Once I graduated college, I found a church in Arlington and placed membership there, but it wasn't until I moved to Plano before I really started to form a relationship with God. Over the last year He has opened my heart to many different situations and has really shown me that He is ultimately in control. This last year has been a fun, tough, amazing, challenging and inspiring year. I have gone through a lot, but it lead me to decision to go on the World Race. I am super stoked and cannot wait to see how God will change me over the next year!
Some fun facts about aiMEe:
- I am addicted to chapstick. Literally. Especially Strawberry chapstick.
- I am 26 minutes younger than my sister and 2 inches shorter than her. Yes, this is possible even though we are identical.
- Whenever I am feeling down, I like to listen to the song Free Fallin' by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.
- My go-to dinner of choice is pepperoni pizza from Domino's.
- My favorite movie is Top Gun.
Want to know more? Just ask!
