I grew up in small town Iowa. When I say small town, I mean really small (less than 200 people). Throughout high school I was involved in performing arts, my favorite of which was being in the plays and musicals. I graduated with a big class of 40 people and moved off to a community college about an hour away.

College was a lot of fun for me. I met a lot of new friends and it expanded my horizons to new culture and ways of life. During one of my classes I found out about the Disney College Program. This is where you go and work at Disney World for a period of time and get college credit. Being obsessed with Disney for most of my life, I jumped on that opportunity real quick. I went through the program twice, both of which were some of the best experiences of my life. Since, I have spent my entire relationship with my husband trying to convince him that we HAVE to make a yearly trip to Disney World. So far, it’s a no go. I know I will wear him down eventually though.

Matt and I met in Baltimore, MD in a program called AmeriCorps NCCC. After I graduated from college I really wanted to join the Peace Corps. Upon further research I found that you have to have quite a bit of volunteer hours before they will accept you. One of the suggested programs to acquire said hours was AmeriCorps. So, I packed some stuff in a green military bag and got on a plane to Baltimore.

I am not kidding when I say on day one of the program I saw this man across the gym and said to myself “I need to meet him”. He had this energy about him that I was so drawn to. We had just arrived, everyone was tired, and absolutely no one knew each other. Matt was walking around with a big smile on his face and talking to everyone as if they had been friends for years.

A couple weeks in it became clear that he was interested too. We spent evenings getting to know each other. We decided to “become exclusive”. And so our love story began. We spent the next two years serving our country in AmeriCorps – first in the New England area and then in the Midwest.