We met in February of our sophomore year of high school, in 2018, through a really good friend of ours. Her name is Hailey, which is also Jordan's Maid Of Honor. We always look back and laugh because we actually met each other the summer before but neither of us remembered anything about the other.

On the first date we were both definitely super nervous. Kaden came over and met Jordan's parents and her English bulldog mixed pug named Ty. Jordan had come up with the idea to go ice skating, even though it would be his first time ever skating. He may have looked like Bambi but that's okay! He tried his best.

From that night on we continued to hangout every weekend. We started dating on April 6th, 2018. The first time Kaden met Jordan’s grandparents, they gave him the nickname Kajen. This nickname has stuck around ever since then. It's funny because we joke that her family doesn't know his real name with how often they say it and we laugh about it all the time! So if you hear anyone call him Kajen this is why.

Our senior year unfortunately was cut short due to covid. Schools closed March 13, 2020 and we didn’t know what to expect. Schools ended up closing the rest of the school year, which meant all of the senior events were canceled. We didn’t get to go to prom, walk our elementary schools, have our senior banquet, or even have a normal graduation. We both worked at Adventure Club which is an after school daycare for all of our surrounding elementary schools. We did not work in the same school but still had the same job. Since the schools closed, we ended up losing our jobs. After that we decided to start doing Instacart together. If you don't know what that is, it's an app that people join to buy groceries or be the shopper. So we basically went grocery shopping for these people on the app and delivered the groceries to their house. We did this for a couple months, and then a very loving, generous family that Kaden knows, and is close with, offered us both a job at Caribbean Pools for the summer. They are The Foster’s and are partial owners of the company. We spent that summer working at Caribbean cleaning and fixing pools. We couldn't thank them enough for the opportunity during a rough time. It helped us out tremendously. We actually both worked there every summer up until last year. Jordan's last summer was last year due to her school schedule. Kaden worked his last season there this past summer.

Once school started back up we left Caribbean to head into our first year of college. Kaden went to Olivet Nazarene University for his undergrad to pursue a career as a Physical Therapist, getting a degree in Kinesiology. Since Kaden had to live on campus, this was very hard for both of us since we were so used to seeing each other everyday. He was able to come home on the weekends which helped out a lot. His second year of college, he decided he wanted to become an RA (resident assistant) for a freshman dorm. He enjoyed the job but it was tough not being able to come home every weekend like before but he pushed through. He continued to be an RA during his Junior year as well but not his senior year. He is now in grad school at Governor's State, which is closer to home, pushing through his last 3 years of schooling.

Jordan stayed home and went to Ivy Tech Community College to pursue a career as a Physical Therapist Assistant. School is not her strongest suit, so after 2 years of trying, she was unable to get in the program. She decided she wanted to change her major to sonography but Ivy Tech did not offer this degree, so she had to transfer to Indiana University Northwest. She just started her program this summer at IUN pursing her sonography career.

Now for the story behind why we are all here today!!

During our second year of college, we were both going through hard times being away from one another. Kaden wasn’t used to being away from home for long periods of time and being an RA led to that. Kaden felt he wanted to propose after over 4 years of was dating it was time. We decided to take a week-long trip down to Florida to see Jordan’s grandparents new house in Fort Myers. The second day we were there, May 22, 2022, we went to Fort Myers beach to watch the sunset. There were a ton of people there so we walked down the shoreline.

Kaden was super nervous as he was about to propose. These two ladies who were very intoxicated and shouted at us to come look at this “alien.” It in fact was not an alien but a water-logged, washed up peach in the sand. Kaden knew these ladies were the perfect opportunity to ask them capture this moment. They told Jordan and Kaden to take a picture of the peach, to which they did and then Kaden asked one of the ladies to take a picture for them. The lady that took the picture told them to do a serious one then a funny one. Kaden knew it was time. Kaden then asked the lady to take a video… Jordan and the lady had no idea what was going to happen. Then, Kaden turned to Jordan, got on one knee, then proposed. Everyone started crying and the lady who took the picture gave us both huge hugs and told us she loved us. After all the emotions, we walked back down the beach to the car and facetimed family. It was perfect.

This is our story and we wouldn't want it to be any other way!