Thought we already tied the knot?! Well, sort of…Now it’s time to make it official in all 50 states!

Jay and I met at UBC back in October 2014. Jay claims that he first noticed me when we were in a conference room for our work assignment though, I remember no such thing. My recollection of meeting Jay goes like this: There I was, a fresh college grad in my first office job, sitting in a cubicle (1/2 height) typing away when a man walks up, leans on my wall and introduces himself. My heart literally stopped and it was love at first sight. As most of you know, this was going to be a bit of a problem for me as I had just gotten engaged that June. This was also going to be a problem for Jay since he was also engaged AND (though he was not my direct manager) was directly up the ladder from me on our study team. I was absolutely infatuated with Jay and needed to find an excuse to talk to him. I asked him to lunch to discuss what it was like to be a CRA and how I could work on my career path. He said yes. We ended up at the Beer Kitchen where we ordered a small plate of food, each of us were too nervous to even take a bite. We talked about work briefly but, mostly discussed our personal lives. It was apparent that he was just as taken with me as I was with him. Later that month, I broke things off with my fiancé and moved back home. I decided if I could feel this way about Jay then I could not marry someone else...even if Jay chose to not leave his fiancé for me. Jay and I spent as much time together at work as we could and it was only a matter of weeks before he broke things off with his fiancé and we were free to be together...sort of. Working on the same team presented it's own hurdles. We decided to not tell anyone at work that we were together. That lasted about 3 months before we got the courage to fess up. We would sneakily go on walks together, go out to lunch and he even trained me to complete a very important study task that was a level above my role. After we told the UBC crowd that we were dating, things began to get a little dicey. We were both written up for spending time together, though we were sure to watch our email timestamps and knew we hadn't changed our behavior at work at all. We both take pride in what we do and were very disheartened to learn that others didn't like us being together. We were soon separated onto different study teams and I chose to leave the company for a new opportunity with more room to grow. After we survived the break-ups and work drama we did what anyone head-over-heels in love would do: We moved in together! We are forever grateful for our time together at UBC and all those memories made on 39th Street.

Jay's travel bug was contagious and we quickly began traveling the world together. We started with a trip to Omaha where Jay will never let me live down the fact that I exclaimed "There's tall buildings here?!" as we were driving into the city. He thought it was hilarious that I pictured Omaha as just another farm town. It was clear I was travel naïve. In August 2015 we went to Cozumel. We skinny dipped and then abruptly crashed a wedding where I, still drenched, proceeded to teach the entire reception the cupid shuffle. In October 2015 Jay took me to New Orleans. This began our tradition of going on a trip for my birthday! In July of 2016 we packed our backpacks and boarded a plane to Athens, Greece! There are sooooo many stories I can tell about our trip to Europe but, here's the gist of the trip: We hit 16 cities in 16 days, mostly via train and Jay was a fantastic tour guide. Here is a quick blurb on the most memorable places: 1. Athens - Surprised me with a black, rock, beach where we stuck out like sore thumbs by using airplane blankets as towels. 2. Naples - We didn't stay long here as we were just train hopping to get to Sorento/Pompeii. I'm fairly certain I was the only woman out in the street within a mile radius of that train station and the streets were packed. It was quite the eye-opening experience. 3. Sorento - I got to introduce Jay to Limoncello! We drank an entire bottle by a pool and soaked up the sun. 4. Rome - This is where we got the bright idea to get matching tattoos. I found an artist that could fit us in that afternoon but, our next train was about to take off! 5. Venice - We arrived before the sun was up and got to watch a beautiful bride take her wedding photos with the sunrise. 6. Budapest - We spent the night on a train with 2 Hungarian women who did not speak much English. When we arrived we went straight to the bath house that Jay had previously visited with Travis and Deanna. We decided to re-create their picture taken on a teeter-totter down the hill from the bath house. I had a few too many beers, mixed with the sweating from the bath and found the Hungarian money to be hilarious. We had so many coins I thought we were rich! I later took a nap on a park bench. 7. Paris - I wasn't too thrilled to be heading to Paris but, once we were there I was in LOVE! We stayed for 3 days seeing the sights, eating the food, doing some laundry and finally getting that matching tattoo! 8. Minden, Germany - A very cold place that we rolled into at about 4:00am. It was at most 40 degrees and I had nothing but shorts and T-shirts. No shops were open and the doors were wide open on the windy morning in the small train station. We will never forget how cold we were in Minden for those few hours. 9. Munich - Our final stop, where we also ended up for 3 days! The people were incredibly nice, the beer was amazing and Jay took me on a walk with a very cool surprise at the end; people surfing in a river! We have been on many other trips together including about 7 other Mexico vacations, Ireland, a few Colorado trips, more Omaha visits, Des Moines, Washington D.C., California (San Diego to San Francisco), Puerto Rico, Miami, Tampa, Jacksonville, Atlanta, Memphis, Nashville, Cincinnati, Branson, St. Louis, Lake Travis, TX and of course San Antonio.

Jay and I decided to sell his Parkville House in 2016 because we wanted some land. This led us to meeting our beloved realtor, Stephanie, and sending her on Mission Impossible #1. She, of course, exceeded our expectations and found us 5 acres with a large shop and beautiful house just north of Lawrence. While living in the Lawrence location we enjoyed woodworking (though we were never very good at it) and picked-up motorcycle riding and fixing. Somewhere between woodworking and motorcycle riding we decided we wanted to be a family, even though neither of us wanted children. We thought having a big wedding would be silly since we already bought a house together and no one would care (HA!). We were Common-Law married in the state of Kansas anyway! I went ahead and petitioned to change my last name to Konovalske and we read each other vows on April 29, 2017. We had a photographer and a single friend to witness. It was cold, rainy, windy and hailing on the day we celebrated our marriage. We packed up and went to Playa the next day for our honeymoon. Upon our return is when we revealed our marriage to our family. I'm unsure exactly how many bikes we owned, parts we scrapped or carburetors we cleaned but, I am sure our love of riding is what brought us to San Antonio. I mean, what was the harm in getting rid of nearly everything we owned to pack up and move 800 miles south? Steph was able to sell our Lawrence home and we bought a brand new house in San Antonio in July 2019. This house was in a GREAT location! We lived in a small, new neighborhood between 2 elementary schools. We had a pool, were close to the airport, and within walking distance of a Walmart Neighborhood Market (Jays favorite store). While in San Antonio we bought brand new motorcycles, ate amazing food, starting bicycling AND my biological clock started ticking.... "But Andrea, you said you guys were never getting married and never having kids" Yes. I know. And then we told you we got married and I somehow talked Jay into trying for a baby only 3 month after moving away. We decided we were going to "play the lottery" and I would go off birth control. It was a great solution for those of us who never wanted kids! If we didn't get pregnant it was a win and wasn't meant to be. BUT if we did get pregnant it was also a win and was meant to be. Apparently it was meant to be because as you know Jori is definitely our winning lottery ticket, won on the first raffle! Little did we know the world was going to fall apart just a few months later when COVID-19 emerged. We frantically moved into my dads house in March 2020 for fear of state lines being closed while we were trying to move back home before I gave birth to Jori. Call in Steph for Mission Impossible #2; Find us a house halfway between Parkville and Lawrence as quickly as possible during a global pandemic. Boy, she doesn't disappoint. Steph found us our adorable Basehor house that we bought, sight unseen, and moved into in April 2020. Marjorie Fox Konovalske was born a few months later on July 10, 2020. Our lives were changed forever and we were immediately in love with our daughter. We grew together as parents and as a team. We welcomed Kate as Jori's nanny in February 2021 and everyone lived happily ever after... Just kidding! Then we decided we wanted another child and that our house was not large enough for another human. We called up Steph for Mission Impossible #3: Help us build a house during a pandemic. Steph connected us with the right people and the right location. We began building our dream home and trying for baby #2 shortly after. Building the house was thankfully taking longer than we had planned because I was beginning to fret about moving into a lager house if I couldn't get pregnant again. Luckily, we were able to work with a fertility clinic and conceive Halle after 4 IUIs. Halina Love Konovalske was born on May 24, 2023. Our hearts grew with our family and we couldn't be happier.

Jay and I have been together for 10 years, this October. Yes, I count us being together from the moment we met. **See story 'How We Met'**. We have celebrated the buying/selling of 7 homes, been promoted at work numerous times, changed jobs, traveled together and alone, adopted a puppy together (Commander Zavala), had a baby, said goodbye to my best friend Max, I brought home Beck's, we had another baby and are now ready to celebrate our love and family with you. Seriously, having kids makes you soft. We never saw the importance of a wedding until we had Jori. I wanted to wait to get married until the girls were old enough to remember but, when Kate's father unexpectedly passed at such a young age we realized life is too short and too precious to wait. We would not be 'Andrea and Jason' without the love and support from all of you throughout the years. We know we have made some impulsive decisions that may have hurt many of you **See story 'Never a Dull Moment'** where we elope and abruptly move away without consulting anyone. We didn't realize at the time just how precious our family and friends are. We now want to set the record straight and a good example for our daughters. We believe our love, relationship, teamwork, passion and family is worth celebrating with a ceremony and reception. We believe it is important to spend the time planning and preparing our party with those closest to us and enjoying a Sunday afternoon with everyone we love in a place we love. We are excited to make new, fresh vows to one another in front of you. 10 years of growing and changing together has made us 100% certain we were made for each other. We have experienced many ups and downs together and created many loop-de-loops on this roller coaster of life but, one thing has remained. We have never left the car or even thought about unbuckling our seatbelts and the track has never broken. Our love only grows stronger with each bump. That said, thank you. Thank you for loving and supporting us from beginning until now. Thank you for loving our children and taking the time to build a relationship with them and us. We cannot predict the future but, if our girls are anything like us, there will be plenty more excitement, surprises and celebrations for years to come. Cheers! Andrea and Jason