My Story

September 2001: Met and began dating my now-husband Austin as a sophomore at Auburn University. I was 19; he was 21. He lived across the hall from me and we met on the stairs.

May 2004: Graduated from Auburn with a Bachelor of Arts in Public Relations and a minor in Marketing. Austin graduated the same day, with a Bachelor of Science in Finance. Began my master's program the following summer and started working as a graduate teaching assistant teaching Public Speaking at Auburn.

January 2006: Moved to an apartment in Alpharetta, Ga. Began two internships in Marketing/Communications in Atlanta, one on the agency side two days a week, and one on the corporate side three days a week. We still made it back to Auburn a lot!

May 2006: Graduated from Auburn with a Master of Arts in Communication and was hired on full-time at Cox Enterprises' AutoTrader.com subsidary in the Marketing Department as an Internal Communications Coordinator with a focus on internal communications (i.e. project management/consulting, writing, editing, blogging, podcasting, reporting, working with publications, intranets, etc.).

June 2006: Moved to a loft in Buckhead! Had a blast with Austin in Atlanta - so glad to be in the same city again!

December 2006: Austin proposed on a mountaintop in Park City, Utah, during a family vacation with the Martins! A few months later we took engagement photos.

September 2007: Me and Austin met and quickly became obsessed with our fur baby Reuben (a shih poo). Was promoted to Internal Communications Specialist at work!

January 2008: Following an engagement party in my hometown and two wonderful showers in Birmingham and in Atlanta, I had a fabulous bachelorette party in Atlanta hosted by my sister!

February 2008: Me and Austin got married in Birmingham, Alabama. Below are a few favorites; Here’s a bunch of pics.

Fall 2008: I started the blog in September 2008 and joined Spark People after a Labor Day trip/bathing suit pictures made me realize my working out efforts weren't working! 

February 2009: I’ve been married for a year! I posted more progress pictures at my new weight – 115. We also got even more serious about house hunting, and even found our home!

March 2009: We bought a house!! We moved in on the 30th. 

October 2010: We got a new family member, Remy, the perfect little maltipoo!

March 2011: Became an aunt to sweet Dane Harrison Porter, my sister and brother-in-law Zach's little baby boy!

February 2013: Baby girl Beckett arrived!

June 2013: I resigned from my job to be a Stay-At-Home Mom!

October 2014: We lost our son Owen Hendrix at 20 weeks pregnant. A week later, an opportunity with my old company (AutoTrader.com's) parent company (Cox Enterprises) came up - part-time, all-from-home contractor. It seemed like the perfect time to move on to a new chapter of our life and a wonderful distraction while we grieved. Am still working for Cox 15 hours a week from home as a project manager and love it.

Taken at 19 weeks before we realized he had lost his heartbeat 

November 2015: We lost our baby girl at 9 weeks along. I think of her as June, when she would have been born. This was another big step back in our journey, but we are trying to focus on the positives - loving our sweet, healthy Beckett, our poodles and feeling fortunate to have wonderful families and friends, jobs we enjoy, a happy home, and hope that we may have another healthy baby one day.

Family photo shoot the night before my D&C

Well that was my attempt to sum up key milestones over the last decade plus. SO HARD! As I was reviewing the big, huge, link-filled summary here, I found that our lives can easily be looked at in quarters:

First Quarter (January - March): We usually spend New Year's on a family ski trip with the Martins, then come back home to snow, cold days in, a few get togethers here and there, our anniversary dinner (February 16), a St. Patrick's Day party, and that's about it! Now, we have Beckett's birthday to celebrate on February 8!

Second Quarter (April - June): This is where things seem to pick up with weddings, baby showers, engagement parties, birthday parties, Auburn's A-day, Memorial Day family lake trip, etc. We also try to do a 'tropical vacay' during May!

Third Quarter (July - September): Concert season, beach trips, Labor Day Lake trip, preparing for Auburn football season! And more weddings and fun parties of course!

Fourth Quarter (October - December): Football season! We visit Auburn a lot, we reconnect with so many friends and family, we try to visit Athens (for UGA/Martin family!), and of course the holidays (Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas - this is always ours (and I"m sure everyone else's) busiest quarter. It usually ends with us flying out for a family ski trip!