Hello friends and family! Stephanie here....Aaron and I are so excited that you are here to share in our journey of coming to know and love one another. Aaron and I met in 2014 while we were still in high school. He was attending Grove City Christian School, the neighboring private school to the public school I was attending, Grove City High School. Aaron played basketball in high school and he and his teammates had an ongoing tradition of going to McDonald's before every game.. So around 3 times per week. And you will never guess who was their order taker... ME! Aaron and I discovered we had a mutual friend on his basketball team and got to know each other a little through that. Aaron was a senior at the time and made plans to go to college, so our friendship went separate ways for the next year.

During that time, I finished high school and graduated with plans to attend Ohio University, while Aaron went to the University of Cincinnati and joined the Army National Guard. During the summer of 2016, we reunited during a church service at our home church Grove City Church of the Nazarene. From this point, we kept in touch during the early weeks of college at our separate schools. The cute boy from the basketball team that always came in to irritate me at my job soon became my best friend.

Aaron and I grew closer in our own relationship as our individual relationships with Jesus grew. Aaron taught me what it meant to be a child of God through his wisdom and unconditional love for me and for the Lord.

The past three years Aaron and I have been together have been nothing but fun as we have enjoyed each other's presence doing our favorite things: going to coffee shops, playing board games, and staying active. We are very excited as we take this next step into entering into marriage with one another because we trust in the plans Jesus has made for us. In the next year as we prepare for marriage, I will be graduating college and Aaron will step into God's calling for him to be a college missionary at H2O Cincinnati.

We thank everyone who has poured into us and crafting us to being people who can love one another and others well. We love you all and we are so excited we get to share our lives with you.

Aaron and I made the decision to marry each other on July 6, 2019. The day prior to this us and 7 other friends decided to go camping at Red River Gorge in Kentucky. This weekend was extremely hot and bugs were everywhere. However, the hike was awesome!!! In the morning, we all woke up to the sunrise around 5:30 am.. mostly because I was talking. Aaron asked me to read our Bibles together. It was 7 am and he brought me to this cliff a short ways down from where we were camping. We read Colossians 3 together. Verses 12-17 reads:

Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

After reading, Aaron prayed over me and read to me a note he wrote about how he envisioned the rest of our lives would look like together. A couple things he mentioned were: lots of car karaoke, lots of laughing over silly jokes, maybe some cranky mornings, and most importantly pursuing Christ together. Then he pulled the most beautiful ring out of his back pocket and asked me to be his wife! And of course I said YES!!

Aaron's proposal was perfect for me! I said YES to forever with my dream guy in God's beautiful creation surrounded by our awesome friends. This day really set the stage for how we hope the rest of our lives will be together!