Woman Moves to Stay with Boyfriend’s Children Hit by Hurricane After Weeks of Dating (Exclusive)

• In 2017, Luis dated Kelley for weeks as he struggled to get news about whether his children were safe after Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico.
• Kelley and Luis tell PEOPLE that even though they just met and were dating with a 16-year age difference, they took on the challenge of giving his children a new family life.
• Seven years and two more children later, the couple tells PEOPLE how their family journey was all about taking risks and believing in each other

A relationship that developed under unusual circumstances turned out to be the basis for a beautiful new family.

When Kelley and Luis started dating in November 2017, love wasn’t the only thing on his mind. The father of four then became ill Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Ricowhere three of his children lived with his ex.

“There was no communication. The city they lived in was completely destroyed,” he tells PEOPLE. “There was a period of more than 30 days where I had no idea if my children were okay or had survived the storm. Finally being able to connect was the biggest relief.”

Some other family members were able to reach Luis’ children before the National Guard could rescue them.

“When we got the call, I remember exactly where we were driving. He immediately pulled into a parking lot. I remember sitting there listening to his ex-wife on the phone describing the situation on the island,” Kelley told PEOPLE.

“I remember her asking him, ‘Is there any way you can take the kids?’ It was not a good place for them and the priority was to get them out. He said yes, talked to the kids and hung up.”

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After the call, Luis, who was 39, told Kelley, who was 22 at the time, that he couldn’t ask her to deal with it so early in their relationship. In response, Kelley bought the kids’ plane tickets and let him know she was all in. Midway through the month, they picked up the children from the airport and prepared for life as a blended family.

“I knew going into the relationship with him that he had older children and I knew that if I was going to be with him and date him, that meant that at some point in the relationship we would have to start exploring and doing things like that “, she shares. “So I thought, ‘What better way to show him that I’m serious and that I care about this relationship and that I want to explore the opportunities that me and him have together, than to let him. see that I care about his children’ ?’ ”

The situation was a big adjustment for everyone. The children – then aged 17, 14 and 12 – were shocked when they were displaced from Puerto Rico and moved to the United States with their father and his new girlfriend.

“I had all these teenagers coming up and giving me love and telling me, thank you for getting them off the island and being willing to take them in. It was really an overwhelming experience,” says Kelley.

The couple wasn’t ready for children right away, but they made the best of it in their small apartment while they worked to find a larger home. With some help from family, they were able to move into their first home together.

“We needed a safer place for us as a family so everyone could feel more comfortable as we were all still getting to know each other,” says Kelley. “He and I were still exploring our relationship since we were relatively new. I was still teaching the kids and developing our boundaries with me as their stepmom, but not really since we were just dating were. It was a lot.”

“It was a big learning curve, having teenagers, going to school, doing homework and working multiple jobs,” she adds.

The family ran into trouble again in 2018, when Kelley and Luis learned they were expecting their first baby together, daughter Thea.

“She’s our rainbow baby because with all the changes and stuff, I got pregnant in early 2018 and had a miscarriage at six weeks. I worked a lot as a waitress so we could make ends meet,” says Kelley.

“I remember those days and thinking, ‘Kelley is working two jobs while pregnant and she’s never complained.’ She did this every day while helping me take care of the kids, take them to sports and school, and give them a sense of normalcy. When they had the opportunity to go back to Puerto Rico, they didn’t want to go back .They ended up staying with us.”

The family dynamics and the relationships the children formed with each of them excited Luis and Kelley. That said, the logistics weren’t easy for the two, as parents or as a couple.

“We never had a honeymoon phase. What was supposed to be our honeymoon phase, the time we got to know each other, went straight into parenting teenagers,” says Luis. “She had to figure all this out, especially when she was spending more time with the kids than me because I was traveling all the time for work.”

Kelley agrees, explaining how the new couple found themselves in the same rut that new parents often do after having their first baby at home.

“You kind of lose focus because you’re taking care of kids. Dating wasn’t really for us. I was lucky growing up,” says Kelley. “My parents did so many things for me, so I had really good role models to look up to for what childhood would be like. But I remember trying to recreate it for his kids on a very, very small budget, so they could do that.” be proud of what they did.”

Welcoming their daughter Thea together brought the family “closer” as they celebrated their newest member.

“It brought ownership to everyone, which closed the loop a little bit within the family,” Luis says, noting that it also took place during a chaotic time when the family moved from Florida to Washington.

Kelley explains that the move expanded their resources, but Luis “decided to trust me.”

“I was four or five weeks postpartum and ended up getting a job while we were driving there,” she says. “We seized the opportunity.”

Once the family settled in Washington and saw their work beginning to bear fruit, another change came. Inspired by Aspyn OvardKelley decided to try her hand at social media.

“I watched her in high school and I was always into social media and stuff, but I remember talking to Luis about it one day,” Kelley recalls. “I was like, ‘You know how cool it is? That she has documented her whole life. And when she has kids, one day she’ll be able to pull up all those old videos. Her kids will see all these cool experiences that they and what her life was like. What a cool thing to have and hold, the way she documented it.’ ”

Luis jokes, “I was already in my 40s and social media wasn’t my dream.”

Kelley started making TikToks, mainly for the whole family to enjoy together. One day she decided to try a mother-daughter trend with one of her stepdaughters and was surprised when it went viral as people commented on their family dynamics.

“Then we posted something about the age difference between Luis and I and that blew up too,” she says. “After a few viral videos, we started the creation process. We started paying more attention to it when COVID hit.”

At the time, Kelley was a receptionist at a veterinarian. When she found herself working on her first Mother’s Day, Luis tried to make up for it by offering her the opportunity to pursue social media full-time while supporting the family financially.

“There was no way I couldn’t support her in this,” says Luis. “Even though I didn’t understand it, I just couldn’t sit there and watch her be unhappy. So we started working really hard and posting a lot.”

Although the first year was full of family content, Kelley and Luis were eventually confronted with the need to change.

“At the beginning of our social media journey, we really focused on our family and sharing the stepmother and stepchild journey. It really bothered me how many people saw stepparents in a negative light. It was a positive experience for me. taught me so much about myself and about selfless love and even unconditional love. We really wanted to challenge that narrative,” Kelley explains.

“Then we started to pull back a little bit because we noticed that the older two didn’t really want to be in as many videos as (the youngest) Ana,” she says.

Likewise, the couple has decided to minimize the amount of Thea and youngest daughter Isla, who Kelley and Luis recently welcomed together, in their videos.

“We don’t show the babies as much because we don’t feel like they’re old enough to be able to make a decision,” says Kelley. “When they see us filming, they want to be part of it, so we show them videos here and there, but where they’re not the focus.”

Today they present ideas to the family and let the children decide who wants to participate.

“The other day we had his oldest come visit with her husband and we said, ‘Hey, don’t feel like you have to appear in a video. If you want to be great, let us know, but you’re here visiting ” says Kelley.

“I’m a big believer that once your children grow up, the relationship has to change,” Luis explains. “I have to treat them like adults, like peers in a sense, and communicating about these things has made that transition easier.”

Kelley and Luis are hopeful that their children, like them, will see the family’s unusual beginnings and the ups and downs along the way as something to laugh about.

“We’ve all had traumas and childhoods that weren’t the most normal,” says Kelley. “We’ve learned that comedy is a fun place to make light of really bad situations. I think we’ve all leaned into that as we’ve grown as a family. At the end of the day, what else can you do? It’s life and there will be terrible things happen. You can let it destroy you or find the positive in it.”

The family, who believe in big leaps of faith, recently took another big leap. When Luis retired in June after nearly 24 years of service, the family moved to Los Angeles so Ana could pursue her acting dreams.

“We didn’t have anything restricting us and she really loves to create, so we came here. It was an overnight decision because we knew that if we gave ourselves too much time to think , we would talk ourselves out of it,” says Kelley. say.

“My children have always supported me in my career in the military. Ana was born in Italy and then we moved… every two years,” says Luis. “It’s not like she’s had steady friends or a place to call home or feel homesick for. Because she has supported me for so long, now it is my turn to support her now that she has a dream.”

In almost seven years, the family’s life has undergone a complete transformation. Kelley believes it’s all a result of taking risks for herself.

“The biggest lesson I learned is that the best thing you can do for yourself is bet on yourself,” she says. “You have to believe that you are capable of achieving the dreams you have. I only learned that through Luis’ support, but it has been so important to have someone support me and say that my dreams are valid. I have learned that trusting and leaning on myself for what I want and going after it, it’s worth it every time.”

“There’s so much more to come,” says Luis. “I just hope we continue to rely on ourselves and make things happen.”