About us
When Shelley and Dave met in the fall of 1997 during Shelley’s freshman year at CSU, they didn’t exactly hit it off on the first try. Their first meeting was at dinner and the movies with a group of mutual friends. Shelley didn’t have any distinct recollection of Dave and Dave thought Shelley seemed a little immature. But as they spent the rest of that school year on the same small group at church, they had the opportunity to interact more and some of that impression softened. During the summer, Shelley went back home to Wisconsin and, when she returned for college the next fall, she and Dave went separate ways to different small groups. Nevertheless, there was time to chat here and there and they became better friends over that the course of that year.
During the spring of 1999, Shelley became ambitious and decided that it was time to find some nice young girl to settle Dave down. In May, they both went on a week-long trip to build homes in areas of Honduras that had been hard-hit by Hurricane Mitch. On the flight back, they had a long conversation about what sorts of requirements Dave had for any prospective girlfriends. After formulating the list, Shelley promised that she would keep her eyes open.
During the latter part of that year, Dave and especially Shelley were faced with some difficult circumstances in their lives and much of the scouting was put on hold. Because of those times though, they were forced to rely on each other quite a bit more and grew to become best friends. However, later in the spring of 2000, the strength of their friendship was tested as they began to have disagreements on various issues. When the possibility for a good job opportunity in Boston opened up for Dave, he declined to discuss any of his decision-making with Shelley and wanted to sort things out for himself. After a hard month or two, he and Shelley reconciled their differences and, in many ways from that period of being apart, began to have new appreciation and affection for one another.
In August of that year, in the parking lot of a fraternity house after one of their soccer games, Dave finally admitted to Shelley that he might be beginning to think of her as more than a friend. At the same time, they both agreed that they didn’t know if they were ready to begin a relationship and so they would just give it some time as friends and see where God led things. They had plenty of adventures, including dinner and dancing at the black-tie Respite Care Ball and their first ever trip to Japan with Hiroto (one of Dave’s roommates) to visit his family.
Finally in February of 2001, Dave started to feel that it was time to act on his feelings. He sat down with various friends and asked what they would think about he and Shelley beginning a relationship. Everyone had positive responses and, on Valentine’s Day evening (after a series of humorous mishaps), Dave asked Shelley if she would be gracious enough to become his girlfriend, knowing that it would quite probably lead to a marriage proposal in the not too distant future. She said yes.
That summer Dave and Shelley spent some time traveling to visit family. Shelley got to meet Derrick and Melanie in Houston and Dave got to visit the Zubrick family in Tallahassee and on St. George Island. In December of 2001, the Deakins and Zubrick families met when the Zubricks came to Colorado to celebrate Shelley’s graduation from CSU.
2002 was a year of changes with Shelley starting her new job at Lesher Junior High and with Dave taking on a variety of new responsibilities at work. 2002 also involved interesting medical situations; Shelley struggled with headaches through much of the year and Dave struggled to get back into decent shape and a healthier lifestyle. Throughout all of these adjustments, their relationship continued to blossom and, in April of 2002, while Dave was at a scientific conference in Orlando, he stopped by the Zubricks’ home in Tallahassee and asked if he could have permission to propose. Shelley’s dad said yes and, 3 weeks later, after an elaborate series of flowers, notes, stuffed animals, and limousines, Shelley said yes, too!
Lots of exciting things have happened since then. After a wonderful wedding in June of 2003, we purchased our first home in the summer of 2004 on the east side of Fort Collins. A cute little yellow lab named “Tex” followed soon after and became the “practice child” for our household. Now in the fall of 2005, we are anticipating a new arrival, our first baby, a boy, is due to arrive at the beginning of March!