In search of a job, John moved to De Pere, Wisconsin in January of 2022. We met at the end of July in 2022 on Hinge, a dating app. After about a week after messaging, for our first date, we went to play volleyball. One of the local churches has open gyms on Tuesday nights. Ashlyn claims she didn’t believe that Johnathan was a murderer since he invited her to church. We were able to meet each other and get comfortable in a group setting. We didn’t really have a chance to talk while playing, but had fun playing on the same team and against each other. Ashlyn said one of her bucket list items for the summer was to go hiking at Devil’s Lake State Park. So, for our second date, we went and picked up coffee around 6:30 am and drove to Devil’s Lake. We did some hiking and swimming. On our way back the conversation continued, and we decided to stop for dinner. Ashlyn didn’t have the urge to ditch John, I guess he wasn’t a murderer after all. The next week John asked Ashlyn to be his girlfriend after a walk in De Pere. We both loved being around each other and always had fun.

A couple months later Ashlyn took John on a day trip to Washington Island in Door County. We love hiking and going to new places together. Ashlyn showed John around to all her favorite places.

In October we went up to Door County again. We visited Peninsula State Park and went to our first fish boil together.

Later that month, we got to spend time together celebrating Austin (Ashlyn's Brother) & Lexy's Wedding.

One of our favorite things to do together is give back and serve. We filled boxes together for Operation Christmas Child in November.

We visited John’s Parents over Thanksgiving. We took a walk downtown and we enjoyed the Candlelight Walk in Oregon, Illinois.

Next spring we planned a bunch of trips. We went to High Cliff State Park in June and got yelled at by the Ranger for hammocking off the trail over a beautiful water stream.

One of John’s bucket list things to do was to go Yellowstone and Grand Tetons National Parks. We decided to go together even if we had to “rough it”. We packed the car full of camping and hiking gear and took turns driving all night to get to Wyoming. The trip was exhausting but it was well worth the view. We stayed at 3 different campgrounds in the 2 parks. 2 of the campgrounds didn’t have water so we showered out of a bag in our swimsuits.

John bought his house in August. It needed lots of work but it has been learning and growing in our handiwork.

In October, we went to the upper peninsula of Michigan for the first time together. It rained all weekend but the fall colors were beautiful at Lake of the Clouds State Park.

We became members of our church in the fall. Ashlyn decided to get re-baptized as an adult to proclaim her decision to follow Christ. Both our parents joined us in celebrating.

In March we went to see “We Are Messengers”, this was our first Christian Concert together. It was at Green Bay Community Church which is where we had our first date.

John proposed at Devil’s Lake State Park, which is where we went on our second date. Marissa, Josh, Taylor, and Alex got to play a part in the proposal and helped celebrate.