Third time is the charm.
Charlie and Mandy Nigretto nearly got to know each other twice. But it took a third encounter for love to take hold.
“I was supposed to go to prom with him,” said Mandy, who is four years younger than Charlie. “Neither one of us remembers why, but it never happened.”
She graduated that year, and worked at the gas station on Main Street. Charlie would fill up his car there frequently and always flirted with Mandy. That was as far as it went. Then Mandy moved to New York to live with her dad. A year later, she came home for her friend Christy’s graduation from Orcas High School. Christy was dating Charlie’s best friend, so the two decided it would be fun to set Mandy up with him for the short time she was on the island.
“I absolutely fell in love with him,” remembers Mandy. “I never went back to New York. I told my dad to send me all my stuff back. It was a blind date taken seriously.”
Charlie says he fell in love with Mandy’s sense of humor, beauty and easy going manner.
“I knew her because she went to school with my sisters, but we had never dated,” he said. “I was definitely looking forward to that date.”
<img src=”http://raven.b-it.ca/portals/uploads/isounder/.DIR288/mandy-charlie.jpg”></img>
The couple lived together for a year before getting married. Soon they expanded their family to include Alexa, now 23, Tyler, 20, and Bella, 15.
“Our kids are everything to us,” Mandy said. “Charlie is so devoted to them, especially coaching sports … we focus everything on the kids. It’s going to be weird when they are all moved out. There won’t be any games to go to or bunches of laundry to do. My dream is to get an RV and travel the country with Charlie. Just the two of us.”
Mandy owns and operates “Mandy’s Hair Haven” in Eastsound and Charlie is a foreman at Orcas Excavating. Between work and their kids, it’s hard for alone time. They say their marriage is a success because they listen to each other, work through problems and laugh.
“Our biggest problem is money: he makes it and I spend it,” laughs Mandy.
Charlie says they “just get along really well.”
“We live together well and we don’t argue a lot,” he said. “What we argue about is the typical married stuff: money and kids. Other than that, we enjoy each other’s company. We let each other do our own thing. We’re equally independent. She can go on trips with her friends, and so can I.”
His favorite thing about Mandy is her zest for life.
“She always wants to go somewhere and do something,” Charlie said. “She keeps the household moving.”
Mandy loves her husband’s honesty, humor and calm demeanor.
“Nothing ever seems to be a big deal for him,” she said. “He never gets worked up.”
Charlie says he is “game” for another 25 years with his wife at his side.
“I’m looking forward to raising our grand babies,” Charlie said. “I am excited to see where the next 25 goes. She will be good grandma and I will be a good grandpa. I think it will be fun.”
Mandy says the hardest part of being married is compromising. She wants to travel more but Charlie wants to save up money.
“We balance each other out,” she said. “We might get annoyed but it’s only for a minute. We’re laughing again right away … It just works. Sometimes there are no words to say why. It just does.”
