I was born and raised in Midland, Michigan. It was a great city of, at the time, about 40,000 people. Fairly low crime rate, lots of great churches, many good friends. I met my wife when her family moved there in 1993. Her family ended up going to our church and we went to the same middle school and high school. Her older sister actually drove us to school for a few years so we wouldn't have to get up so early to catch the bus. I was not what you would call an outgoing person and so they were always coming up with creative ways to get me to talk. Pretty funny now, really, looking back on it.
We got to be friends mostly through time spent in the youth group at our church. Eventually we started dating, and we've never looked back. I left for college while she finished her senior year and then came to the same school - Michigan State University.
We were married May 20, 2001 and immediately moved to Illinois for the summer where I had an internship with Motorola. After a battle with Ulcerative Colitis, we went back to MSU for the spring semester of 2002. My wife finished her Bachelor's degree in Family Community Services in May 2003. I finished my Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering in May, 2002, and my Master's in Electrical Engineering in December, 2003. Shortly after that we moved to Dayton, Ohio where I started work at Smiths Aerospace. GE Aviation purchased Smiths Aerospace a few years later so now I work for GE. We rented for the first year we lived in Ohio and then bought a house in a very small town called New Carlisle. You can find pictures of our house on the 'pictures' page.
We've been attending Sulphur Grove United Methodist Church almost since we first moved here and are actively involved in youth ministries and running the nursury, which my wife is responsible for. There's nothing that improves your relationship with God like trying to teach it to others!