Our History

This is the history of this branch of the Avery family. Darin and I met briefly in Southwestern Ohio at some point around 2003-2005. He had come up to work for the Southwestern Baptist Association as a pastor at our local mission and then later became a church planter. The church I grew up in would work at the mission sometimes, occasionally Darin would show up at FBC, and my senior year of college I worked for the mission/association helping with a fundraising projects so our paths crossed a few times.
In 2006 Darin decided that he wanted to take a group of teenagers that were a part of a house church he was leading on a mission trip. He also really wanted to get to know a girl who was then serving as a USC2 for Cleveland Hope. Being the creative soul that he is, he decided to kill two birds with one stone and take his students on a mission trip to Cleveland. Thus allowing him to get to know the missionary girl (me) and get his students involved in missions.
My job was to coordinate the mission teams coming to Cleveland, so I talked to Darin a few times while he was planning his trip. Then one day I got an email asking me very nonchalantly if I would like to go to an Indians game w/ him when he came up for his pre-trip. I said yes, even though I do not like baseball and the thought of going to a 3 or 4 hour game with someone I didn't know and didn't think I had very much in common with would be very much fun. However I wanted to be nice to an old aquaintance from home, and if I'm perfectly honest I was curious about this church planter that I remembered being somewhat attractive.
When he showed up in my office I was thought he was VERY attractive and our first date went great. We talked all through dinner and the three hour baseball game and then he even came to my house for awhile after that. He was charming, funny and most importantly he loved Jesus and had a heart for missions. I was becoming smitten and apparently so was he.
Over the next few months we started dating long distance. He made a lot of trips to Cleveland, we met in the middle a couple of time and I came down to see him a few times. Our first date was June 1st, a few weeks later he told me he wanted to marry me, a few weeks after that I said I thought he was the one too, and by August 26th we were engaged! On August 27th he moved to Cleveland to come on staff at a new church that was about to launch as the worship and small groups pastor We married on February 24, 2007, honeymooned in Jamaica and then came back to start our life together as a married couple.
In October of 07 we bought a condo in the town where our church is located. My job with Cleveland Hope was over in December of 07 and then I also joined the staff of our new church working with students, preschoolers and mothers. We got pregnant w/ Landon in March of 2008, he was born December 9, 2009 and now he is six months old! Wow it is amazing how time flies!
Darin and I are passionately in love w/ Jesus Christ first, each other second and our amazing son third. We want to live our lives with the purpose of seeking to know Christ more intimately and helping others to do the same. We want to raise our son to know, love and serve Christ always, and we want to do the same for any brothers or sisters he may have in the future.
So there are the highlights for our family's history thus far... I'll post some picture highlights now too!

Best summer of my life! (That is a firecracker, noise maker thing

The proposal in Christmas Lights!



Faking suprise (look closely its not the real ring)

Impromptu engagement pictures in the park.



Our wedding


Our yummy chocolate wedding cake!


One of my favorite pictures...

Honeymoon in Jamaica

All moved into our condo


4D shot of Landon's face-24 weeks



30 weeks prego


A family of 3...