While I was living in Arizona, one of the most important things happened in my life. I met Maria who later on became my wife. I remember that it was my mom who first spotted her. The rest of my family had joined me in Arizona a few years after I moved here. 
We were all living in one apartment, and my wife still jokes about the fact that you could tell that ten people were living in a tiny apartment because there were always people coming and going.
One day, my mom was looking out the window, and she said “Pedro look! Come here, come here!” I had no idea what she was yelling about at first, so I went over to the window to look. My mom points to this beautiful girl about my age who was walking in front of our apartment with a backpack and books.
Pedro at age 17. His first picture in AZ
I was so embarrassed because my mom started asking me if I thought she was pretty. It was hard for me to talk to my mom about girls at the time, but she kept insisting that I go outside to talk to her. I quickly built up the courage to go talk to her, and I took my car keys so that I could offer to give her a ride because it looked like she was headed to school.
I didn’t know what to say at first, but I somehow got her attention and asked her what her name was. To my surprise, Maria actually talked to me, and I wanted to act like a gentleman so I asked her if she needed a ride to school. At first she hesitated, but finally she said yes! We hit it off from there and began dating shortly after that. I knew that she was the one that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with so we got married after she graduated high school. We began having a family while she was in college, and now we have five beautiful children. Maria stole my heart since that first day that I saw her and my feelings have only grown stronger as the years go by.