Jaclyn moved to Las Vegas for work on July 23, 2014 after a fun cross country road trip with Sarah D. As an avid Mets fan, Jaclyn remembered that Las Vegas was home to the Mets AAA team (Las Vegas 51s). Jaclyn researched Las Vegas 51s on Facebook and Google and by chance found a JewEL event posted for July 31. JewEL is the Jewish Federation of Las Vegas young leaders group. Jaclyn decided to attend the JewEL event at the Las Vegas 51s even though it was 106 degrees. Her reasoning was because she was new to Las Vegas and she was just looking for friends. Fortunately Ben also attended the event as well after work even though he was in business casual clothing and it was 106 degrees! He has mentioned he thought about skipping this event. Jaclyn and Ben attended this event separately and at some point in the evening, Jaclyn walked over to Ben because Ben caught her eye. She said to Ben something along the lines of “Hey what’s up?” and then they talked the rest of the evening and decided to hang out at a weird downtown Las Vegas bar after the game. The rest is history. Fun fact: Jaclyn caught a foul ball while at this game. That was the first foul ball Jaclyn ever caught.

Jaclyn and Ben both turned 30 in 2020 and wanted to celebrate in Hawaii since it is an easier trip from the west coast. Originally the trip was planned during Jaclyn’s birthday week, but 2020 had other plans. The trip was rescheduled to December when Hawaii was reopened and the direct flight from NJ to Hawaii was running. The trip was planned last minute due to uncertainty with how quickly COVID-19 test results would become available in order to travel to Hawaii (there is a negative test requirement to depart). Jaclyn and Ben scored timeshare reservations on both Maui and the Big Island during Christmas week which is normally impossible. All signs were pointing to going to Hawaii with how safe the islands were in the pandemic. Jaclyn and Ben stayed in Kihei on Maui for 6 days and had a great time eating amazing fish, hiking at Haleakala National Park and seeing all of the amazing beaches along the coast. At one point early on in the trip, Jaclyn and Ben discovered amazing fish tacos from a food truck and stumbled upon this beautiful beach cove nearby (Makena Cove). Ben knew that was the spot to come back to. On the last day in Maui (December 24), Ben asked Jaclyn to marry him at Makena Cove around 8 am in the morning while it was empty. Jaclyn said yes! Jaclyn and Ben then flew to the Big Island and celebrated the engagement seeing the currently erupting volcano Kilauea, drinking Kona coffee and eating a ton of poke.