{"id":16,"date":"2016-01-30T03:41:54","date_gmt":"2016-01-30T03:41:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/allan-kelli.com\/us\/?page_id=16"},"modified":"2016-05-18T23:33:42","modified_gmt":"2016-05-18T23:33:42","slug":"our-story","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/allan-kelli.com\/us\/en\/our-story\/","title":{"rendered":"Our Story"},"content":{"rendered":"

*Warning. Don’t read this if you’re trying to avoid hearing every cheesy clich\u00e9 thing you’ve ever heard about falling in love and relationships ;).<\/span><\/p>\n

How We Met<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Almost a year and a half\u00a0ago Allan got a job opportunity in south Texas. He heard it wasn’t a great place for social, single guys like himself, so he went to Facebook and started adding himself to a lot of young single adult groups in Texas for our church. At some point I popped up (maybe as a “someone you might know”??) and he saw that we had three mutual friends who were Brazilian and I had\u00a0several cover and profile pictures that were taken in Brazil. He was hoping to make friends who knew Portuguese or were at least familiar with Brazil so he added me and sent me a message. That’s where it all began! Months later I asked him how many other girls he added, since I assumed I was only one of many. He said none! Ha, it was always meant to be ;).<\/span><\/p>\n

It took a few tries and with a few months in between contact, but one time he got tired of texting and asked if he could call me. I don’t know what it was about hearing each other’s voice, but that first call lasted for hours, as did every call after that.\u00a0After some\u00a0online chatting, THREE long phone calls and an invitation from him I bought a ticket to Brazil\u00a0and then the longest wait of my life began. I didn’t tell him right away that I bought the ticket, but when I did his reaction was perfect and a little hilarious. Some guys might be scared off by a girl who buys an airline ticket to another hemisphere to visit him, but I could hear the surprise\u00a0and excitement in his voice and I’m pretty sure he told me I was crazy. Good<\/em> crazy ;). We started talking 3-6 hours a day, often until the sun started rising in Brazil, and spent over 200 hours on the phone or video chatting before we ever met in real life! Meeting in person solidified every thought and feeling we had and we were really able to begin\u00a0the best adventure of our lives.<\/span><\/p>\n

When we first started messaging\u00a0we talked about how neither of us fell hard that often and how finding the right person seemed to be like magic. We both hated all those dumb relationship clich\u00e9s you always hear; “it’ll happen when you meet the right person”; “when you know you know”; “it will happen when\u00a0you least expect it\/when you aren’t looking”; etc. Well, we’ve since humbled ourselves and in our<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0situation all those stupid\u00a0clich\u00e9s turned out to be\u00a0true ;). We both thought people who got married\u00a0quickly were crazy!! But if it hadn’t been for the complicated visa process, we would have gotten married even sooner. Never did either of us expect something quite like this. Never had something felt so right.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Pictures of our Adventures Together<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Before we had real life pictures together, we had dozens of screen shots of our video chats! I’ll spare you most of them and only post two ;).<\/span>
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And we also had this picture my niece Claire drew :).<\/span><\/p>\n

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Then we finally met in real\u00a0life!!<\/span><\/p>\n

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I flew to Brazil for six days the first time. We spent time with his family, eating our favorite Brazilian foods, going to gardens, hiking and camping,\u00a0and\u00a0to the beach. We walked in the ocean at midnight and discovered thousands of photo plankton glowing in the water every time we moved. He taught me \u00a0how to dance forr\u00f3. His brother invited us to go to S\u00e3o Paulo one night and an hour later we were in the car, set to arrive at 1 am. We stayed up all night and then Allan and I explored the city on no sleep! We climbed trees in the city just to eat my new favorite treat, amor berries. He showed me some of his favorite places, but there are so so many more we want to explore together.<\/p>\n

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Stayed up all night and then walked around S\u00e3o Paulo all morning!<\/span><\/p>\n

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Not too long after my trip to Brazil he picked up his life and came to Houston :).<\/span><\/p>\n

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We took a trip to San Antonio and he got to meet some of my best friends, Sean and Natalie!!<\/span><\/p>\n

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We took a trip to Destin, Florida too!<\/span><\/p>\n

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