We met in October of 1998. We were in an religious institute class together. Jennie had noticed Tyson the very first day of class, but patiently waited for Tyson to notice her. One day she decided to change seats. As she walked by Tyson's desk, he looked up and thought, "that is the type of girl I should marry." After about 5 minutes of contemplating that thought, it then occurred to him that he should go talk to her! We started talking and hit it off. Tyson called Jennie a couple of days later for our first date. It was not long before we knew we were supposed to be each other's eternal companions. 
We were sealed for time and all eternity in the Bountiful Utah Temple on January 29, 1999. It was a glorious day. It was the best start of our journey. We had no idea about the love and happiness that awaited us. Shortly thereafter we bought our first home and settled into life. Tyson continued schooling with both he and Jennie working full time. This was all while trying to fix up our 1930's fixer-upper home. We have great memories from this time as well. We were so poor, but so happy. We still cannot believe that we did it, but our grocery budget for a week was $20 (gotta love Top Ramen!). After we had been married for about a year and a half we decided to start a family. We were so looking forward to it! Month after month of hoping passed. After about a year we went to see the doctor, whereupon we heard the words, "You both look great, I am sure we will see you again in 3 months when you are pregnant." We heard those words too many times. Those 3 months came and went, but nothing ever happened.
In May of 2002 Tyson graduated with a degree in Spanish. We then moved the entire contents of our home into a motor home. We sold our house and headed for the road. Tyson worked for a helmet company. He was a liaison between motocross/supercross racers, their agents and the helmet company. We traveled from state to state attending motocross/supercross races. It was such a fun and exciting time. We got to see this great country (even if it was from the freeway), spend every day together, meet and become friends with many amazing athletes and their families and Tyson was even interviewed for ESPN.
(our home for a couple of years and yep that is Tyson in the orange shirt)
After a year and a half of traveling, we felt the need to get more settled down. Tyson had always wanted to be a teacher. The only thing that ever held him back was the money (or lack thereof!). We realized at this time that money really cannot buy happiness in a career. So we moved back to our hometown. We bought another fixer-upper house. Tyson went back to school to get his teaching certificate. Jennie worked 2 jobs to get us through. Jennie also worked on becoming a medical transcriptionist. We knew we would not be able to make it on Tyson's salary, so we looked into jobs that can be done at home. Medical transcriptioning was a great fit. It allows you to be home with your children and still make some cash.
At this point we had been married for 5 years and were not sure what path to take in having our family. Do we pursue adoption? Do we do more infertility treatments? We had a very spiritual experience in which the answer to our prayers was to just "wait." That was the last thing we wanted to hear! We wanted a family so bad, but that was the answer and we had to learn to have faith in that answer.
We also felt promptings during this time to move from our hometown. We knew we wanted to live by the ocean and we wanted to live somewhere warm. We started looking around the country at real estate prices that were reasonable. We felt comfortable about a beach on the east coast and started to make plans to move across the country.
We took a little detour when a school called Tyson 2 weeks before school was to start and asked him if he would be interested in being an intern for the year. He interviewed and got the job. We sold our home and moved a couple of hours south of us. We moved into a dumpy apartment, but it was so fun!
We visited the place we thought we wanted to live and fell in love with it. Tyson got a job and we made our big move across the country. It was a sad time to leave our family, but how can you ignore the prompting that you are supposed to be somewhere else?
We moved and found a home that we loved. Jennie started working for a medical transcriptionist company. We spent this whole first summer at the beach almost every day. Tyson and Jennie both got surfboards and further fell in love with that sport. We also bought a home (and this one we did not have to fix up- yipee!).
As far as our children were concerned, we decided that after we bought our home it would be time to apply for adoption. We were planning on starting the application in the winter. In August Jennie got this distinct feeling that we would not have wait very long for a child. Then the miracle of Cedric happened (please see Cedric's Adoption story for more).
(Picture at our local beach)For the last 2 years our lives have been occupied with this wonderful child. It is so incredible to be parents. We love our little man. We love showing him the world and all the fascinating things God has given us. We have a semi-open adoption with his birth parents (which basically means we send pictures/letters/presents to each other and keep in touch). We consider them part of our family and love having them in our lives.
Tyson is still teaching and loves it. He teaches at high school that is only a few minutes from our house. We live in the community where he teaches, which is great (beside the occasional toilet papering!). Jennie still works from home and is able to hang out with Cedric all day.
We are so excited at the possibility of adding to our family and continuing our story.
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