Who is Heather?

Well, damn. Talk about a loaded question.

Shall we start at the beginning?

Just kidding. (But that is me. Wasn’t I cute? I have no idea what happened.)

How about we skip a few years? I survived elementary, middle, and high school just fine. Graduated in 2000 and went off to college. Finished right on time in May 2004, graduating with a degree in communications and public relations. I got hired straight out of college at an ad agency. After 2+ years of living that pressure-filled lifestyle, I bailed on the company to go work as part of an in-house marketing team at XYZ Company (And no. In case you were wondering, that’s not the real name of it. So don’t go Googling it.).

Now that I’m in the “real world” and know how little money marketing people make, I realize I should have been a pharmacist (big $, companies fighting over you, big fat signing bonuses, access to prescription meds… sounds good, right?). Oh well. Live and learn, people. LIVE and LEARN.

(I’m kidding. Sort of.)

This is me with my brothers. All three of them (I bet some of you thought I only have two). You won’t hear me talk about Chris much. He’s 10.5 years older than me, and is technically my half brother. I love him dearly, but he grew up living with his mom all the way across the country, so the distance, combined with the age gap, never lent itself well to forming an extremely close relationship. I usually see him every few years, and we seldom talk in between–we’re horrible at keeping in touch. But you know what? It works for us. Our visits always involve us laughing and laughing and laughing. Oh, and beer. They always involve beer.

Tyler and Trevor are the ones you’ll hear me talk about often. They are my twin “baby” brothers. They are only two years younger than me, so I actually don’t remember my life without them. We kind of fought like cats and dogs growing up, but in between all of that arguing, we always loved having each other around. Now, all three of us are close friends.

This is my husband, Michael, and me. We met sophomore year of college in 2002, and we have basically been inseparable ever since then. We bought a condo together in June 2005, and have been living there happily, although we are starting to feel like we’re outgrowing it a bit. We’re going to try to ride it out a few more years before moving on to something bigger and better.

Tessa joined our family in April 2006 when she was just 10 weeks old. I won’t tell you too much about her, because she’s so special that she’s going to get her very own tab on the navigation bar. But I don’t think I have to tell you that she is the princess.

We absolutely adore the little girl, and we are so thankful that we came through a recent health scare with her. As it turned out, it was just a scare, and we are tremendously grateful. All we have to do is simply think about that time in our lives, and we live and feel it all over again. It certainly helps put everything else into perspective. We came away from that with some lasting life lessons, for sure.

On June 15, 2007, Michael proposed to me on a day when I would have least expected it. It was perfect, just the two of us at home. I was in gym shorts and a t-shirt, but I wouldn’t change it, even if I could.

I flung myself head first into wedding planning, and that’s how this blogging thing came about for me. I started to feel like I wanted to chronicle it all. Not only that, but I knew I was going to be the very definition of a DIY (and on a budget) bride, and I thought perhaps I could help people. So that was when Road to the Aisle was born. It’s funny, because I wasn’t sure anybody would ever read it. And at first, no one really did. Somewhere along the way, however, I picked up a pretty substantial following.

Even now that it’s essentially been abandoned (meaning no new posts), I still get a tremendous amount of traffic over there. I guess it has sort of become a DIY bride’s reference, and I think that’s pretty cool! (I guess it’s too bad I didn’t write a book instead of posting it all on the internet for free, huh? I kid, I kid.) I love going back to it now and then, mostly because it is a digital scrapbook of that time in my life, both wedding related and sometimes non-wedding related, too. I love that.

Michael and I were married on June 21, 2008. It was such an awesomely wonderful day. It was more than we could have ever hoped for, and we will cherish those memories forever.

On the Monday after the wedding, we left for our honeymoon in Hawaii. I think I’m going to use the phrase “awesomely wonderful” again, because I just can’t come up with any other words to describe it. We had an absolute blast. The more and more time that passes, the more and more we want to go back. And it hasn’t even been a year! We are in trouble, folks! We can’t wait to make it back there someday.

After the wedding and honeymoon, I knew I was going to want to continue blogging. Strictly for that whole “scrapbooking” reason, really. It’s a journal (albeit a public one), and more than anything, I want to have it for myself. The followers and the connections established with those followers are just bonuses. I never thought I’d have people who would still care to read my ramblings once they had nothing to do with weddings! But I do, and I thank everybody who is part of that following. It was in July 2008 that Heather Drive was born.

So what are we doing now? Just living life, really. When exciting things happen, they usually make it to the blog in one form or another. Sometimes, even boring things make it here (though I try to keep that to a minimum). I share my thoughts and stories. I share photos. I share recipes (mmm, food). I talk politics, but usually only when I’m pissed about them, which thankfully hasn’t happened recently (yay Obama).

We’ll see what the future holds. I hope you’ll keep visiting Heather Drive.

I’m Heather. And this is my life.