My name is Karen; I was born on June 22, 1962 in California USA. I have an older brother who is married and has two wonderful daughters and a fantastic wife. My parents are both still living and are now in Texas where my mom was born.
I grew up in Sun Valley, California where I went to school until my junior year of high school at which time we moved from Southern California to Northern California. We lived in San Jose for about seven years. I graduated from high school and started to attend College. During my first year at the local Junior College, my brother injured his knee at work, required knee surgery so I choose to drop out of school, and stayed home to help him get about. Just before my 21 birthday, we moved back to Southern California and lived in Westminster, which is about 10 minutes from Disneyland. I stayed here until I moved to Perth, Australia to be with my husband. I worked in both retail and general office. I got my manicurist license at about 20 years of age and did that for a number of years.
In the early part of 1999, my mother became very ill and my father asked me to stay home and care for her and take care of the family home. I did this with much love. My dad bought a computer for me to play on and well that opened the door for the next big event in my live little did I know at the time. In March of 1999 I started to hang out in a chat room in
http://www.icq.com and at the time was just enjoying making friends from all over the world and having something to do when I wasn't caring for my mom or the rest of my family. At the end of August, Nick aka happy started to hang out in the same room as me and we started to talk and no one else in the room knew. Our friend Michael teased us all the time that we would make a great couple little did he know we were talking and getting closer. I knew Nick was from Perth, Australia at the time it did not matter I did not think anything would come from it. Little did I know? So in October as a joke Michael got a group of our friends together and had what we now call the first cyber wedding on ICQ chat. Each room can have a maximum of 999 people in them and we seemed to have filled almost two rooms. Nick and I were talking on a voice chat server and we were laughing so hard neither of us could talk. People were changing their nicknames to things like the florist, bridesmaids, groomsmen, and limo driver. Michael then had us exchange vows. I still ca not believe we did that back then. Little did we know where that was about to lead us. Nick and I spent many hours both online or on the phone talking and getting to know each other and over time, we fell in love and started to talk about getting married. Nick asked me three times to marry him, I finally accepted on his third proposal, which was at midnight January 1, 2000 (California Time). Nick and I had still only seen each other in pictures and talked on the phone. With the help of my parents, the wedding planning was on and in about 6 weeks, my mother and I had our wedding all planned and ready to go. If you would like to see pictures, you can
http://happyandkaytee.gotdns.com. Then it was the waiting game till Nick arrived on June 3, 2000 in the late afternoon and after a very long plane flight which was almost a 24-hour trip. We spent that night in a local hotel talking for what felt like only minutes only to look at the clock, open the drapes, and find it was almost 10:00 a.m. the next morning. We then went back to my parents home where we stayed until the wedding the following Saturday.
Since moving to Australia, I have met some wonderful people. I was very blessed to running into a woman at a local store at which time she told me about a group of American Women here, known as the American Women's Club of Perth. This group of women has been a blessing to me. They have given me a place to talk about where I am from and things I miss along with making some wonderful new friendships.
I already had this site in development. Therefore, I opened it up to the club members of the American Women's Club along with family, friends and anyone else who would like to add their favorite recipes with others.
I cannot believe I spent over 7 years in Australia. Wow how time flew. Nick and I have not been blessed with kids as of yet. That is in higher powers hands.
Nick and I have moved back to the USA December 2007. We have made San Antonio our home. We are lucky to have met some wonderful friends and get to go out and spent time with them. Some are from Australia and some are from all over the USA.
Thanks for helping and I hope you enjoy this site as much as I enjoy making it. If you would like to submit a recipe please feel free to email is at
[email protected].
Hugs to you all,
Karen M.
My name is Karen; I was born on June 22, 1962 in California USA. I have an older brother who is married and has two wonderful daughters and a fantastic wife. My parents are both still living and are now in Texas where my mom was born.
I grew up in Sun Valley, California where I went to school until my junior year of high school at which time we moved from Southern California to Northern California. We lived in San Jose for about seven years. I graduated from high school and started to attend College. During my first year at the local Junior College, my brother injured his knee at work, required knee surgery so I choose to drop out of school, and stayed home to help him get about. Just before my 21 birthday, we moved back to Southern California and lived in Westminster, which is about 10 minutes from Disneyland. I stayed here until I moved to Perth, Australia to be with my husband. I worked in both retail and general office. I got my manicurist license at about 20 years of age and did that for a number of years.
In the early part of 1999, my mother became very ill and my father asked me to stay home and care for her and take care of the family home. I did this with much love. My dad bought a computer for me to play on and well that opened the door for the next big event in my live little did I know at the time. In March of 1999 I started to hang out in a chat room in http://www.icq.com and at the time was just enjoying making friends from all over the world and having something to do when I wasn't caring for my mom or the rest of my family. At the end of August, Nick aka happy started to hang out in the same room as me and we started to talk and no one else in the room knew. Our friend Michael teased us all the time that we would make a great couple little did he know we were talking and getting closer. I knew Nick was from Perth, Australia at the time it did not matter I did not think anything would come from it. Little did I know? So in October as a joke Michael got a group of our friends together and had what we now call the first cyber wedding on ICQ chat. Each room can have a maximum of 999 people in them and we seemed to have filled almost two rooms. Nick and I were talking on a voice chat server and we were laughing so hard neither of us could talk. People were changing their nicknames to things like the florist, bridesmaids, groomsmen, and limo driver. Michael then had us exchange vows. I still ca not believe we did that back then. Little did we know where that was about to lead us. Nick and I spent many hours both online or on the phone talking and getting to know each other and over time, we fell in love and started to talk about getting married. Nick asked me three times to marry him, I finally accepted on his third proposal, which was at midnight January 1, 2000 (California Time). Nick and I had still only seen each other in pictures and talked on the phone. With the help of my parents, the wedding planning was on and in about 6 weeks, my mother and I had our wedding all planned and ready to go. If you would like to see pictures, you can http://happyandkaytee.gotdns.com. Then it was the waiting game till Nick arrived on June 3, 2000 in the late afternoon and after a very long plane flight which was almost a 24-hour trip. We spent that night in a local hotel talking for what felt like only minutes only to look at the clock, open the drapes, and find it was almost 10:00 a.m. the next morning. We then went back to my parents home where we stayed until the wedding the following Saturday.
Since moving to Australia, I have met some wonderful people. I was very blessed to running into a woman at a local store at which time she told me about a group of American Women here, known as the American Women's Club of Perth. This group of women has been a blessing to me. They have given me a place to talk about where I am from and things I miss along with making some wonderful new friendships.
I already had this site in development. Therefore, I opened it up to the club members of the American Women's Club along with family, friends and anyone else who would like to add their favorite recipes with others.
I cannot believe I spent over 7 years in Australia. Wow how time flew. Nick and I have not been blessed with kids as of yet. That is in higher powers hands.
Nick and I have moved back to the USA December 2007. We have made San Antonio our home. We are lucky to have met some wonderful friends and get to go out and spent time with them. Some are from Australia and some are from all over the USA.
Thanks for helping and I hope you enjoy this site as much as I enjoy making it. If you would like to submit a recipe please feel free to email is at
[email protected].
Hugs to you all,
Karen M.