Hi this is a little backstory on who we are .. Kelly & Sharon Reed
We met at a party in high school (Lewisville High School), Kelly was a Senior I was a Freshman – yep he robbed the cradle and then corrupted me! Actually we were both pretty good a corrupting ourselves at that point in life, typical teenage rebellious years. We fell in love, were each other’s first loves and then as usually happens in young love – broke up and went our separate ways. Then in 1985 I was driving past Kelly’s house on a whim and he was standing in the drive way, so it was one of those “well what are you going to do now” moments – keep going or stop? I stopped, it happened to be his birthday (he was convinced I knew it and that’s why I was driving by – he was wrong) his family was going out to dinner at Southern Kitchen and invited me along …
Skip ahead to January 1st, 1987, our Wedding Day, at the little church on Round Grove Road in Lewisville, Texas. We had love and we had passion in our marriage but we didn’t have a relationship with God and without that when we came into hard times, we didn’t do well. Kelly had a hard time after his Dad passed and I didn’t understand and know how to help him – sadly our marriage didn’t survive and we divorced after 8 years in an ugly divorce with a lot of hurt and anger. I guess you could say we had passion in our divorce too.
The years between we both led very different lives .. but the funny thing is that there were also parallels. Read more about that in our individual “About Us” posts.
Fast forward to August 21, 2009 I was in my dorm room at The Salvation Army College for Officers in Atlanta GA reading a devotion from the “Just Like Jesus” by Max Lucado, when God literally hit me over the head with my hypocrisy. There I was studying to become a preacher but holding a grudge and anger and hate towards Kelly for the things in our marriage and divorce. Finally on that day I prayed for God to help me let it go and totally forgive Kelly and to forgive me for being the hypocrite I had been. It was like something washed over me and I felt free – after bawling my eyes out, I got up off of the floor and sent a Facebook message to Kelly to ask his forgiveness. He immediately messaged me back and said he had forgiven me years earlier. We started emailing, then talking every once in a while to talking every night .. it didn’t take long to fall back in love.
One year later, August 21, 2010 we were married in the Pecan Grove at his family’s home in the most beautiful, sweet SURPRISE wedding. Yes, folks that is right – Kelly planned, and threw an entire wedding with all the decorations, lights, white covered chairs, friends & family, a band and Texas BBQ and I had no idea! Way to go Kelly! (we will post some of those pictures soon)
We now live in Tyler, Texas with our 4 legged children; Lilly, Prince and Q-Tip, all rescue or adoption dogs and we love them like we birthed them ourselves. We take all 3 with us when we can, but on the longer trips Q-Tip goes to Mema’s house.
About Sharon
As a child I moved around quite a bit, which I feel gave me the Wanderlust! I am definitely NOT a home body, I like to be on the move and I LOVE to travel. Our family vacations were usually road trips to see our family or friends. I remember how much I loved those trips, the cooler my mom would pack full of cut veggies, stuff to make sandwiches, drinks, etc and of course there are always great potato chips! We stayed at Holiday Inns and would get Kentucky Fried Chicken as a treat – back in the day before it was KFC. I can smell that original recipe now .. finger lickin’ good! Sometime around my 3rd grade year we bought a Champion Motorhome and starting camping or RVing as a family. We usually stayed at KoA campgrounds – we traveled across Michigan and Canada with some of our family friends, the Fry/Svelund family and the Lakies family. I have such fond memories, of playing cards, running around the campgrounds, fishing, riding our bikes and hanging out with family and friends! That was when the seed was planted that this is how you vacation – I was HOOKED!
I have worked most of my career as a Project or Program Manager in the travel industry, which included flight benefits that blessed me with the ability to travel anywhere, any time there was an empty seat on a plane. Between my personal and work travel I have been blessed to travel all around the world; Mexico, multiple islands in the Caribbean, the UK, Scotland. Ireland, Italy, Germany, France, Belgium, Switzerland, Sweden, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Africa (I am sure I am forgetting some)… As beautiful as each of those countries are, what I recently realized was that I had not seen much of my own country and that I should!!
One day I’ll write my story of how I ended up at The Salvation Army …
About Kelly
Coming soon …