In September of 2019, exact date unknown. Devin logged onto Facebook and saw there was a little heart symbol. She clicked on it and realized it was a dating site that FB added. At the time, Devin had recently received a promotion from QA Lead Tech to QA Manager for the Elkhart Biolife. She had been commuting to and from Fort Wayne for several months at this time. She had recently gotten out of a bad relationship and wasn't looking to date. However, she got this feeling that she should see what would happen and decided to create a profile. Devin started getting messages not long after creating the dating profile, but realized they were all from the Fort Wayne area. She had every intention of moving to Elkhart, so decided to update her home radius to the Elkhart area. Not long after doing this, Tylor came across her profile and decided to message Devin. In Devin's profile, she had written that Jurassic Park was one of her favorite movies. It just so happened that Tylor also liked the movie and also had a Jurassic Park t-shirt on in one of his profile pictures. So it goes that a mutual love of Jurassic Park would be the ice breaker that would bring the both of us together, eventually leading us to where we are today!

During the time Tylor and Devin started talking, Tylor was scheduled to have surgery to correct a deviated septum. On 11/17/19, he had surgery without complications. At this point Devin and Tylor had been talking for a few weeks and had met a few times. Neither were wanting to rush into anything and wanted to see where things would go. Especially since during that time, Devin lived in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and was driving back and forth from Elkhart, IN every day for work (a 2-hour drive one way!). To add to that, Tylor was living in Kalamazoo, MI, which was 2-hours from Fort Wayne and 1 hour from Elkhart. Despite it being a long-distance relationship, things were going well. Both found they had a lot in common and the more they got to know each other, the more they liked each other. That is up until the day of the incident! Tylor had giant splints inserted into his nose following the deviated septum repair, which would help with the healing process. They caused a lot of pressure and discomfort, on top of the pain and swelling from the surgery. The morning of the incident, Tylor woke up suddenly with extreme pain and realized that his nose had been bleeding. Now this is where the story gets funny. Let's jump to Devin's perspective. She gets a message saying that Tylor is having complications from the surgery. He tells her that he has to go to the hospital for emergency surgery. Devin, although early in the relationship, had started to develop feelings for Tylor. She starts to worry about him. Hours would go by, but no word from Tylor. Devin starts to worry even more. She decides to text Tylor to check in on him. But no response. She waits then tries texting him again. But no response. At this point she is really starting to worry that something happened. So, she calls him. But no answer. At this point she goes into a panic thinking that something had happened. She couldn't get in touch with Tylor and at this point it had been hours since she last communicated with him. She decided to try and reach out to his mom through her Facebook profile. But she received no response. Devin reached out to Tylor once again and finally got a response. However, it was not the response she expected. Tylor told Devin that she was being too much and being overbearing and that he couldn't "deal" with her at that time. Devin, who was legitimately worried, instantly became furious. She had been worried sick about him, just to hear that she was being "too much." So, she stopped talking to him and decided to wipe her hands of him all together. She had developed feelings for this guy and was legitimately worried about him, She didn't know what was going on and just wanted to make sure he was okay but he was a complete jerk to her! Now jumping back to Tylor's perspective. Tylor would wake in the middle of the night with blood literally gushing out of his nose. Not just drips, literal gushing. His aunt would take him to the ER, where every doctor and nurse would comment that was the most blood they have seen come out of a human body! Tylor would be given morphine that he had a bad reaction from. It caused him to pass out and the nurses would need smelling salts to wake him up. After that ordeal, he was then forced to eat crackers to overcome the morphine in his system. Tylor had been emotionally and physically spent by this point. He was taken into ER surgery to cauterize a broken blood vessel in his nose. During this chao, Devin would start reaching out to check on him. But he was so out of it from the morphine, loss of blood, and roller coaster of a day that he was spent emotionally/physically/spiritually. As the day went on, he would find that Devin started blowing up his phone, which would cause him to lose his patience. He just wanted left alone! Thankfully Devin is a forgiving person, and Tylor would come to his senses and reach back out some weeks later. Had he not, we would not be where we are today!

It started out as an ordinary summer day. Tylor asked me if I wanted to go to the lake and I was beyond thrilled. I got a metal detector for Christmas and wanted to take it to the beach. I had wanted to go all summer. I had planned on bleaching my hair that day, so I went ahead and did that. Tylor was antsy to get going because I was taking forever. I didn't understand why he was getting so frustrated with me. But he said Rose, Gigi (his mom) and Scott were going too. I didn't think much of it because it's not out of the ordinary for everyone to all go out together. We headed to South Haven, and when we got there, it was packed. So, Tylor says, "let's find some place less crowded." So, I entered beaches near us on my phone. GPS pulled open a beach that seemed like it was close and hopefully not as packed. So, we left and headed towards this beach. However, it was quite a bit further away than we thought. In addition to that we got there, and it turned out to be this beach where the only way to get to the water was to go up and down stairs that are situated on a crazy steep hill. Ironic enough we had gone to this same beach earlier that summer. We both thought we were going to die climbing the stairs that day and swore to never go back! When I entered the information into my phone, I hadn't realized it was taking us to this same beach. Tylor started getting irritated that I hadn't realized it was that beach. I started getting irritated with him because I didn't know. Rose started getting irritated and so did Scotty and Gigi. We were all bickering with each other if I recall. I just wanted to get in the water!!! Tylor was on the verge of heading back home. I told him I could literally see the water, we came all this way, and I didn't want to just turn around. So, we ended up going back to South Haven. By the time we get back it's 5 or 6 pm at this point. I made a beeline straight for the water. I was in the water for a little while. I can't recall if I wanted to get out and metal detect after that or if Tylor suggested. But I get out of the water and get my gear. I started searching everywhere but couldn't find anything. After a little while Tylor says, "why don't I have Scotty bury a dime, and you try searching for it to make sure it's working." He said, " he already buried one over here or something along those lines." So, I start searching and finally I hear the beep in the headphones. I started digging but to my surprise I didn't find a dime, but a familiar looking ring box. Tylor had bought a ring over a year prior. He wanted to make sure I liked the ring, and we had talked about getting married for a little while at this point. I told him my only condition was that when he finally did propose I wanted to be surprised since I already knew about the ring. Tylor had been stressing out over proposing for months on end. He would later tell me he thought of tons of different ideas. One included going to a zoo that had elephants (I LOVE them!) or even going down to the zoo that I used to work at. However, none of those ideas worked out for one reason or another. So, he had been working for months on planning this huge surprise proposal at a Tennessee Titans game. Our amazing friend Jennifer got him in touch with a contact at the Titans. He worked it out so that Tylor could get on field passes to meet the players. He planned on doing it while on the field, befor the game started. However, a few weeks prior to the game I lost my job, and we couldn't go because we didn't have money like we thought we would. It was heartbreaking, Tylor would eventually tell me his idea. He thought it would make me feel better, but it only made it worse. Especially because we missed our chance to meet Derrik Henry while he was still on the team :( Anyway, I saw this box and it definitely took me by surprise. I was definitely not expecting it. Next thing I know Tylor is down on one knee. He wrote out a beautiful speech and of course I said yes.

I first met Casey at Comstock Northeast Middle School (N.E.M.S) around 1997 I believe. It was the 6th grade, and it was crazy because we were all shipped to the middle school from our small elementary schools, and the size difference was overwhelming. Crazy thing is, since then, N.E.M.S has become one giant elementary school, whereas the middle school is now my old elementary school, which sits directly across from Church of God where the wedding will be. It's strange looking back on all of this because your friends in school don't always stick with you over the years. People drift apart and life just happens more or less. But I'm thankful to God that I have a couple of friends that are still around after all these years and Casey is one of them. He was a quiet kid when we first met, and I suppose I was too. We didn't really fit in with any groups or clicks, and that's probably why we became friends. Looking back, we definitely have some weird and wild stories of our adventures together. One being when we were 13 or 14 years old. I can recall Casey sneaking a beer over to my house on New Year's Eve. I was afraid of getting in trouble, so we compromised on chugging cold Pepsi's instead. The reason we did this was because we were huge wrestling fans and Stone-Cold Steve Austin was the coolest thing at that time. We wanted to be just like him. He was known for chugging beers in the ring. We thought we could mimic him by chugging Pepsi instead. However, we quickly learned that was a dumb idea because the Pepsi was extremely cold and we both got terrible brain freeze. Another story I recall was going to six flags with Casey, Rose, and I. Long story short, we had a lot of fun, but on the way back Rose didn't realize she spent all of the money at the park. She didn't have enough money to get through the toll booth and had to borrow the change in Casey's pocket just so we could get home! inside jokes include, nose chin, that's not the seat belt Scottie, you still hit like a ___. golf ball through a garden hose, slapped with a fish,

I first met Jen when I was 18 years old. It was at the Fort Wayne Children's Zoo. I had started a few months before Jen started. At first, we did not like each other. I remember getting so mad and jealous because everyone seemed to instantly fall in love with Jen. While I was shy, awkward, and didn't know how to interact with people. I used to get so mad because I would always get stuck doing the crappiest job, which was taking care of the storks and hoofstock (although taking care of hoofstock was my all-time favorite job...but storks, EVERYONE hated). Taking care of the storks was the absolute grossest and probably one of the hardest too. Thats because you would have to fill up several 5-gallon jugs of water, lift them in a wheelbarrow, and then cart them all around the different areas where we worked. Then you would have to scrub this fishy/meat goo off the tubs, and refill with the clean water. Oh, and this was done year-round, during both the hottest and coldest times of the year! Anyway, while I was doing all that, Jen got to work with the cool animals like the primates, wart hogs, or wild dogs. Years later though I would learn that the reason I got stuck doing those crappy jobs all the time was because this awful co-worker (Binx-inside joke). There was a white erase board that our supervisor used to assign jobs for the day. Binx would swap my job with someone else's, usually Jen, and she would put me down to work with the storks and hoofstock. Especially if I was scheduled to work with the primates that day! She was the lead primate keeper and for reasons still unknown, absolutely hated me! I got my revenge years later though. She had left to work at another zoo and visited the FWCZ some years later. I made a point to make my way up to the primate building and target train them. I purposely did it on exhibit where she could see so I could "throw it in her face"-another inside joke LOL if you know, you know! Anyway, somehow, Jen and I went from not liking each other to becoming friends and then eventually becoming best friends. When Jen and I turned 21, we discovered Flashbacks. Us and most of the zoo crew would go there and have so much fun. We even made up our own zoo themed dance moves, such as "mowing the dog yard" "feeding the dogs" "pitch forking the manure pile" "sweeping the barn floor" and the infamous "Tucker dance." Yes, a dance was created in my honor due to an unfortunate incident with a stork shelter gate and a very large splinter under my thumb nail. To this day I don't know how we were able to function after some of our fun nights at Flashbacks. We would often stay out super late and would have to be back to work at 6 or 7am the following day. We worked outdoors too, doing physical labor. It would often be super-hot and muggy, (or super cold!) and we were usually extremely tired and working with a hangover. But sadly, they shut down Flashbacks to revamp the downtown area. They re-opened in a different location, but it was never the same. After that, we started going to this dive bar called the Brass Rail. But just like most things, it started to change, we got older, and we started to change, and eventually we slowly stopped going there. I still don't know how we stayed up all night then got up and went to work the next day! These days I can barely function on less than 5 hours sleep let alone add in all the other shenanigans we would do! But I wouldn't trade these memories for anything in the world! Through all that Jen and I became best friends and we both have memories from those experiences that we will cherish forever! The only thing I regret is that I moved to Michigan and can't see her as often as I would like. But we are the type of friends who can literally not talk for months on end and pick up like it was just yesterday. Jen is without a doubt one of the kindest, sweetest, and hardworking people I know. I am so thankful for meeting her and being part of what we called, "the epic zoo crew!"