I had known 'of' Christy via other people in Jr. High, but we quickly became friends officially in 9th grade when we had P.E. together. Christy had a great wit about her and was my 'mile running' partner for the 2 years following. Anyone reading this now will laugh that one of the sports we became fond of (and good at) was floor hockey! We played defense together and we were actually pretty good. We had co-ed P.E. and quite frankly, I think that the boys were frightened of us swinging sticks around and aggressively at that! Luckily, we did not lose any teeth...

Later that year, we had a new student join our class named Cruz. A friend of mine knew of him from Apple Valley and we had a lot of fun with him in class and he liked to tease both of us. Later on, he transferred out, but ironically we saw him again when Christy and I became involved in a church program called PATH and kept in touch. In the fall of 1988 we then went on a double date with Cruz, who brought along his friend John - who later became Christy steady boyfriend and husband!