Jessica & Brad

We love to play golf together. We joined a country club in 2021 and have enjoyed the golf, the social activities and there are a lot of family friendly activities that we would love to take part in one day soon. We like to try new things. We have date night every Friday where we try new restaurants in the area and explore new parts of town. We love to cook. Brad is great on the grill and has several of them! We love to entertain at our home and have family and friends over for fajitas, BBQ, stir-fry, burgers & sweet potato fries or smoked salmon as an example. Jessica loves to make all the side dishes and bake desserts. Pinterest ideas are very abundant here! We love to make homemade pizza and try new things. We cook together 4-5 nights per week at home and eat dinner together at the table. We both grew up having dinner together as a family and look forward to sharing that with our children as well. We like to make the inside and outside of our home look nice. We landscape together. We both pick out flowers and plant in containers every Spring and Fall. We wash off the back patio and enjoy lighting up the chimenea and watching a football game outside together in the evenings. On nice evenings, we will have the music or the tv is on watching the big game. We have traveled together to Cancun, Boston, San Diego, San Antonio, North Carolina, Southern California, Northern Michigan, Detroit, Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri, Las Vegas and New York City. We will continue traveling together throughout our marriage and look forward to including our children in those experiences too. We have a list of places we'd like to go to in the future and we're always adding to that list. One of our favorite places to go together is Northern Michigan. We like being on the water near Lake Michigan, it's a cooler climate than where we live and the scenery and the slow pace of life makes it enjoyable. We can also see some family when we go there which is an added bonus.

We love spending time with our families. Every holiday, every birthday and every "just because" occasion is spent with family. Brad has an aunt and uncle that live about 20 minutes from our house and we spend a lot of time with them. We grill out, we celebrate holidays together, we go out to dinner or run errands together. Having them close by and their support is very important to us. I have an Aunt, two Uncles and a Cousin about an hour away in a neighboring town that we see often for holidays and family get togethers. We often trade off hosting Thanksgiving dinner and Christmas family gatherings with them. My parents live about 3 hours away driving distance. They still live in the town I grew up in and live in my childhood home on about 15 acres right outside of town. They come over to see us about 4-5 times a year and we go visit them a few times a year too. Brad's family lives about a 3 hour plane ride away. Both of his parents and his sister and brother-in-law live in the same town. It's nice that we can travel and see all of them at the same time. Brad's Mom's is one of 7 children and he has aunts, uncles and cousins all over the country. We usually travel to see Brad's Mom, Dad, Sister and Brother-in-Law once or twice a year where they live and in December every year for an early Christmas. We both talk to our families on the phone and/or text with them every day. We really enjoy having a close relationship with both of our parents and having siblings to confide in and we are excited about raising a family with such a close bond. Together, our families have all traveled on vacations together too. One of our favorite memories all together outside of our wedding was where my parents, Brad's parents and his sister and brother-in-law traveled to Northern Michigan one summer. We all rented a house and stayed together. We got to explore the beautiful parts of the area and enjoy each other's company as one big family.

Piper is 10 years old. Jessica adopted her when she was one year old from a local rescue organization in 2012 before meeting Brad. Piper is the queen of the house - we should be paying HER to live here! She is so funny, smart, sweet and has the best eyebrow/facial expressions. She LOVES kids and is so patient. She really should be a therapy dog. She was an only dog until 2020 when we adopted Remi. Remi is 2 years old and we adopted her from another local rescue organization. Remi is the life of the party. She is rambunctious, goofy, inquisitive and all legs. She keeps us laughing and laughing! There's a specific bunny rabbit and squirrel that taunt her from the front window of our house that really gets her going! They both love each other so much and we find them snuggling together all the time. It took Piper a while to accept that Remi was here to stay and we still joke that Piper thinks this is the longest dog-sitting-gig EVER! Piper loves a good fleece blanket and Remi needs a pillow to rest her head on and plenty of toys to lose in the backyard. Picking just a few photos of them was so hard! Our phone photo albums are full of these crazy ladies and we wouldn't have it any other way.

We moved into our current home in the Fall of 2019. We love it because of the corner lot and all the extra yard space plus the pool and outdoor living space. We spend so much time outside. This is a quiet neighborhood in a suburb of a major metropolitan city. There are 120 homes in our neighborhood and Jessica serves on the board of directors for the voluntary homeowners association. The neighborhood has many events especially for the kids to enjoy too. We can walk to the local elementary school and one of the city's libraries. There are 2 large parks nearby with a playground and walking trails. Our neighbors are friendly and there are many kids of all different ages in the neighborhood too. What also drew us to buy in this neighborhood was the quality of the schools, how close it is to our business and that we had room to grow a family here. There are four bedrooms, 3 1/2 bathrooms, 2 living areas and 2 dining areas and a large kitchen that's open to the family room. The house has a lot of natural light and a pretty view and landscaping. The living areas are large for play space and we have room for a swing set in the backyard. Our child would have their own bedroom and bathroom and we would have a guest room and another spare bedroom. It's a one-story house without any steps so it should be easy for a toddler to navigate and feel safe in. In our part of town, there are so many activities for kids to get involved in. The zoo, aquarium, festivals, concerts, plays, amphitheaters, sporting events - the possibilities are endless of things to do.