History of the Evans'

This post is about the Evans family so you know where half of your heritage is from. Evans is your last name and it is a Welsh name. Welsh people are from a country called Wales. Wales is part of Great Britain which also includes Ireland, England, and Scotland. It's across the Atlantic Ocean from where we live now in the USA. So if anyone asks you, you are half Welsh or half British (and half Korean). Some famous people from Wales are Dylan Thomas (poet), Catherine Zeta Jones (actor), Tom Jones (singer), Richard Burton (actor), Anthony Hopkins (actor), Lawrence of Arabia (politician), Bertrand Russell (mathematician & physicist), and King Arthur (legendary King). It's also famous for being the birthplace of Rugby which is a sport your grandfather (to the left) loved. But it's mostly a pretty quiet country with nothing that special about it. In fact your grandparents, June and Gordon, spent most of their early lives trying to get out of Wales. And I didn't really like going there either. Those are 2 of your grandparents on the left (Gordon and June Evans). The 3rd person is your great grandmother (Elsie, June's mom). June has 2 parents - Elsie and Billy. Your grandfather has two parents too. One is Rosie and I'm not sure what his father's name is although I know he died when he was young. Maybe you can ask him his name when you see him (Your auntie Caroline says his name was David)

Your Grandfather - Gordon Novello Evans - and your Grandmother - June Watson Griffith - both lived in Ammanford, Wales. As soon as they were old enough to leave that town though, they moved to England. June went to school next to Wimbledon (where the famous tennis event is held) and Gordon eventually got a job with a company called 3M. Both were poor, poor, poor. Your grandfather used to go pick up coal by the sides of the coal mines (which is what Wales is most famous for) and sell it by the side of the road. They grew their own vegetables and even had some animals in the back of their yard. They are both hard workers because they didn't want to live like that forever. You have a easy life because of what they did for me, which made it easier for me to go to school and get a good job. That photo on the right is your grandparents again with their first daughter, Caroline (she's your aunt and my sister). I'm in that photo too I think but I'm still in my mom's belly.

I was born in St. Paul, Minnesota on August 7, 1968. So I'm 36 as I write this. We were living there because the headquarters of 3M is in Minnesota. But just like you, as soon as I was born I moved. We moved to live in Paris, France (which is near England and Wales). I only lived there for 2 years and then we moved back to Minnesota again. In fact our new house in Minnesota was only a few blocks from where we lived when I was born. Then when I was 5 years old I moved to England to a town called Gerrards Cross. I still don't have much recollection of anything before England. In England I went to a school called Thorpe House. Roger Moore's son went to school with me. He was the second James Bond. I even had an English accent when I lived there. I went to school there and made some friends (oddly they were all Americans). The picture on your left is your aunt (Caroline Evans).

When I was 10 years old, we moved back to Minnesota again. I was thrilled. I didn't like England much. It's cold and rainy and the people aren't as nice as in America. Most of my childhood was spent in Minnesota. Again we lived only a few blocks from where we lived before - the town name was Woodbury. That makes three times we lived in the same housing development. When I graduated from high school, I went to study Chemical Engineering at the University of Minnesota which was close to home. I spent 4 years there and graduated with a Bachelors of Science. After that I moved to San Francisco to attend Stanford University where I got my Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Chemical Engineering. I was there for 5 years until 1995 and I loved the warm weather and the beautiful campus. Ironically your mother went to UC Berkeley which is a big rival of Stanford and not too far away. That picture is of me and a friend of mine when we lived in Woodbury. But it the 2nd time I lived there.

Having put off getting a job for 9 years so I could go to college, it was eventually time to go to work. I moved again. This time to Chicago to work for a company called McKinsey & Co. Even though I studied engineering, my first job was doing business consulting for big companies. I worked there for 4 years. Around that time a lot of new companies were getting started and I, along with some friends, decided to start one called Incent. It was a software company and we worked hard and had lots of fun doing that for about 2 years before the big crash of 2000 caused most of these new businesses to go under. This picture is of your grandmother, June, when she was young.

At this point I didn't like living in Chicago very much either, so I moved to Seattle to work for a company called Microsoft. I loved living in Seattle. It's a beautiful place where there are mountains and the ocean and a very nice city. I met your mother there. When I was working for Microsoft, she worked on my very first project. I liked her right away but I knew she was going out with someone so I figured nothing would happen. After the project was over, I invited everyone who helped me out for drinks and dinner. The only person who showed up was your mother and so we had our first date by mistake. That was on November 30, 2001. I found out she wasn't going out with anyone then and so we started going out that day. We even have some pictures of the first day we met. And you can ask your mother about a diary we kept for the first year we were together. She moved into my condo with me and we dated for about 3 years. During that time we went hiking and skiing in the mountains, eating at lots of good restaurants in the city, meeting lots of nice friends, and doing some cooking after shopping for fresh groceries and fish at Pike's Place Market (where they throw your fish). This picture is of your grandfather's family. See if you can spot Grandfather Gordon? He's the one on the far right. He even looks a little like I did when I was young but with darker hair.

Eventually your mother and I had been going out long enough to know that we wanted to start a family, so we decided to get married. We got married at a restaurant called Vivanda in Pike's Place Market on April 3, 2004. A lot of the people who came to see you when you were born were at that wedding including all your grandparents. Even though it's usually cold in April, we had a wonderfully sunny day in the 70s. Again you can ask your mother for some photos from the wedding (we have lots!). After the wedding we went on our honeymoon in Australia which is when you were conceived. This last picture is also of me when I was young.