Jake first met David in cold Montreal in January 2014, when they were both working on the creation of a new Cirque du Soleil touring production. They developed a close friendship as they toured together throughout Canada and the U.S.! David originally hails from Brisbane, Australia, and he moved permanently to Pennsylvania after spending five years on tour. Afterwards, David was instrumental in encouraging Jake to apply for his first job at TAIT. Then, when Jake relocated to the Lancaster area, David and his beautiful wife, Lauren, warmly welcomed Jake into their home while he looked to buy a house. (David and Lauren now have an adorable son, Axel!) David and Jake enjoy doing lots of projects together, including renovating parts of their homes, building “hidden” tiki bars, and launching balloons into near-space (and chasing after the balloons to recover the awesome footage captured!). And if you ever hear David and Jake saying random T.V. quotes when they are together, they are guaranteed to be from Scrubs! Jen has heard Jake describe David several times as “probably the most unselfish person I know.” It means the world to Jake and Jen that David is going to officiate their wedding; they cannot think of a better person to unite them in marriage!

Tim and Jake met in July 2008, in Sapporo, Japan, when Jake first started touring. Over the course of that tour, Tim and Jake become close friends and continued to work on the same productions for three more years (while having many fun adventures together!). After Tim transitioned away from touring life, he settled in Dubai for seven years where he worked at different theme parks and live shows throughout the United Arab Emirates. Tim met his beautiful wife, Karla, in Dubai, and they welcomed their precious daughter, Kai, in 2022. Even after Tim and Jake stopped working on the same tours, they always made it a priority to stay in touch and meet up around the world. They have traveled to six continents together (Antarctica will happen one day!). Eventually, Jake was finally successful in his years-long “scheming” to convince Tim to take a job at TAIT and move to Pennsylvania! At the very end of 2022, Tim and his family relocated to Lancaster. Jen is thrilled to finally know the legendary “Timmy P,” and Jake has enjoyed continuing his friendship with Tim in this new phase of their lives!

Brian (Jen’s brother) is one of the wittiest and smartest people you will ever meet! Jake knew he would like Brian the first time he met him at Thanksgiving in 2021, as Brian had the whole table laughing uncontrollably. Brian is currently a physician (interventional radiologist) in Oklahoma City. When he is not “saving lives,” Brian can be found traveling around the world, dominating the poker table, extolling the merits of the Fast and Furious franchise, organizing shuffleboard tournaments, analyzing the rhetorical devices employed in early 2000’s dance battle movies, implementing mandatory “espresso hours” to discuss “issues of the day,” learning to play new instruments, and throwing epic tiki parties. Brian and his beautiful wife, Kristen, recently welcomed their precious first child, Calvin, to the family. (Jake and Jen love little Cal so much!) We are looking forward to Brian showing off his mad guitar skills during the wedding weekend!

Mike is originally from California, and he and Jake met each other about six years ago when they both started their new jobs at TAIT around the same time. Mike and Jake became friends very quickly, and at one point, they thought that they were going to move to Orlando together for almost a year for work. (Those plans got canceled at the last minute due to COVID, and the fact that Mike and Jake stayed in Lancaster ended up being a positive thing for Jake’s relationship with Jen and for Mike’s future relationship with his now-fiancée, Laura!) Jake and Mike can usually be seen laughing together! (They have a running “conspiracy theory” at work that they are not usually sent to work on the same projects at the same time because they have too much fun together and get the projects done too quickly!) Shortly after Jen and Jake first met, Jake and Mike took a vacation to Hong Kong together. Jen remembers sitting at the restaurant on her second date with Jake and hearing him talk about how he and his “buddy Mike” would be leaving two days later to go on a vacation. Jake said: “We don’t know where we’re going yet, but we’re thinking it might be Hong Kong. We’ll probably just show up at the airport and decide then.” With a bewildered look on her face, Jen just stared at Jake as she tried to figure out in her mind how it was possible to decide to go to Hong Kong at the very last minute! (Honestly, she still doesn’t understand!) (While they were in Hong Kong, Mike and Jake got custom suits made by a tailor. Because, why not? The picture above shows a night after they got back to Lancaster when they went “out on the town” to show off their new suits- haha!) Mike was one of Jake’s roommates during the height of COVID, and he, Brett, and Jake ended up spending a lot more time in the house together than they ever imagined! (All Jake had to do to get a foosball game going with Mike was to drop a ball onto the foosball table. Upon hearing that sound (no matter where he was in the house), Mike would immediately rise to play (and usually win) the game!) And then, despite their complaints that they were “never” sent together to work on the same projects, in January 2021, Mike and Jake got more than they had bargained for when they were sent to work on a large project in China at the same time. Before they were allowed to enter Beijing, they had to spend two weeks completely isolated in their own hotel rooms in a government-controlled quarantine in Shanghai, and they were not allowed to set even one foot outside of their rooms. Mike and Jake both describe the night they were “released” from quarantine as one of the most surreal and joyful nights of their lives, and they celebrated by eating cheeseburgers! Mike will be getting married to his beautiful fiancée, Laura, just three months after Jen and Jake’s wedding. (So, if you see Mike taking notes on what to do and what not to do during the wedding weekend, you’ll know why!)

Allan “Money Mayes” is one of the most charismatic and genuine people you’ll ever meet! Jake and Allan first met in 2017 during Jake’s second week at TAIT. They spent several weeks together, and Jake realized that not only did he get to learn from an experienced and great leader, but he had also met a great friend. At the height of COVID, Jake and Allan shared housing in Orlando for several months while partnering together on challenging projects. (They worked so closely together during this time that people at work started calling them “Jallan!”) Those were hard months, but Allan’s humor, friendship, technical aptitude, and world-class meat grilling skills made that period of time a positive one for Jake. (Jen first virtually “met” Allan on Facetime during this stint, and he immediately told her: “Don’t worry, Jen, I’m keeping Jake warm for ya!” Somehow, Jen really did feel comforted by this reassurance!)

Craig moved from the UK to the U.S. shortly before the pandemic started; as you can imagine, that was a very interesting time for him! Jake first met Craig in Las Vegas where they were doing upgrades to the control system for the showroom of a Cirque du Soleil show. Since then, Craig and Jake have worked on several projects together. Perhaps most notably, they spent several intense months together in Beijing in early 2021 opening a new theme park. (Jake also had the pleasure of developing a friendship with Craig's beautiful now-wife Lily during this time!) Craig's intelligence is off the charts, and Jake’s knowledge and skills are sharpened every time he works with Craig. When Jake and Craig are not on the move for work, they enjoy hanging out at local pubs and grabbing a "cheeky pint" while they discuss a range of topics from why Python is much better than Javascript to why putting a car on a train is the best form of transport.

Brett and Jake first met on tour in the Dominican Republic in 2010 during what can only be described as a grueling “26-hour” workday. Jake and Brett quickly became good friends as they discovered that they have many similar interests. (Brett is originally from Wyoming, and for years on tour he was known as “Cowboy” because he always wore a cowboy hat!) Eventually, Jake and Brett both took jobs in Las Vegas and were roommates for a year before Jake decided to go back on tour. They continued to stay in touch, even while Brett returned to school to get his degree in electrical engineering. Years later, after Jake was working at TAIT, he convinced Brett to join the same company. Brett and Jake became roommates again when Brett moved into Jake’s house while he transitioned to Lancaster. (They ended up spending a lot more time together in the house than anticipated during the first months of COVID! The picture above shows them taking their temperatures together during a work-mandated two-week quarantine in the house!). After the world started to “open up” again, Brett bought a house that is just one block down from Jake’s house! When Brett is not working in Vegas or scuba diving in Bali, he and Jake like to meet up and try new beers and food (not vegetables!) while discussing the same “nerdy” things that made them friends over a decade ago (and occasionally, you might hear them tell the ole war stories from their touring days!).

Melissa is the best sister Jen has ever had! (Ok, even though Melissa is Jen’s only sister, Jen still thinks she’s pretty great!) Growing up, Melissa and Jen got into many passionate arguments about very important issues, such as which one of them had the greater right to wear “shared” Abercrombie and Fitch shirts and which one of them sang the lyrics to Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You” more accurately! Nevertheless, they have always loved and respected each other. One of Jen’s favorite “seasons” (pun intended!) with Melissa was the year they played on the Varsity soccer team together when Melissa was a freshman and Jen was a senior. (It was quite an unusual feat for a freshman to make the Varsity soccer team at Kingwood High School!) Jen (usually!) did not even feel upset about the fact that Melissa got more playing time than her, because she loved to watch her little sister play soccer. Despite being a small person, Melissa commanded the midfield and intuitively always knew how and where to place the ball to give her teammates the best chances of success. And even though Jen could always beat Melissa in a race on the track (ha!), Melissa’s stamina on the soccer field was a marvel to behold. For a few seasons, Jen’s and Melissa’s club soccer teams shared the same trainer. And the trainer would frequently tell Jen’s team: “You have to go watch Melissa Hailey play soccer. She plays with heart. Everyone should play with heart like that!” To this day, doing things “with heart” might be the best way to describe Melissa. Whether it is building meaningful relationships with her special education students, rescuing dogs with special needs, decorating her house with unbelievable Christmas decorations, or spending quality time with her husband and friends, Melissa gives her whole heart to the people, work, and animals she loves. Melissa has always been a big advocate of Jen’s relationship with Jake, and it means the world to both of them that Melissa is going to play a special role in their wedding!

Meagan and Jen met the first day that they moved into their dorm rooms at Baylor (yay Collins Hall!) when they realized that they would be next-door neighbors for their freshman year! Meag’s bright and bubbly personality helped Jen to feel comfortable and connected on the sixth floor (Meag is a Connecticut woman with natural "Southern charm!"), and Jen and Meag became friends very quickly. Even though they ended up developing different groups of friends that year, Meag and Jen loved coming back to their rooms after classes and social events and sitting on each other’s beds as they chatted about all the events of their days! After their freshman year, Meag and Jen decided to remain “housemates” and move into an on-campus apartment with four other girls. (They later decided to live together during their senior year too in an off-campus apartment!) Moving out of each apartment was always an “adventure,” and somehow Jen and Meag would end up just sitting and staring at their belongings bemoaning the fact that things seemed to “grow” rather than get packed up! (And Jen “may or may not” have lost her keys in a box at one point, which certainly made things “interesting!”) Jen has always appreciated the way that she and Meag shared a strong commitment to their studies throughout college but also found ways to encourage each other to “get out” and have fun with campus life. Meag is one of the strongest, smartest, and most determined people Jen knows! Not only did she work hard to earn a degree in one of the hardest majors at Baylor (physics!), Jen remembers that for a substantial period of time, Meag would wake up at a ridiculously early hour each morning to go to practice for Baylor’s Crew team (and then somehow make it to all of her classes early)! Since that time, Meag has completed medical school and residency and is almost finished with her fellowship in interventional radiology. This woman is unstoppable! One of Jen’s favorite memories of spending time with Meag was during one of the first summers that Jen was living in the Chicago area for graduate school. Meag was dating her now-husband (Steven) at the time, and Meagan and Steven stayed with Jen (and her roommates) for a weekend. Jen loved Steven and Meagan together right away, and the three of them had a blast eating at yummy Chicago restaurants and going to the piano bar together. (There is a story about the “fishbowl” at the piano bar, but we will save that story for another time- ha!) Years later, when Meag called Jen to ask her to be a bridesmaid in her wedding with Steven, Jen was absolutely thrilled to support them in their marriage! Jen and Jake both had the opportunity to travel to Saint Martin to join Meag and Steve’s gorgeous wedding in 2021, and they had the time of their lives! (In fact, Meag and Steve’s wedding week inspired Jen to want to have a wedding weekend with a “destination feel;” although admittedly, the destination “feel” of Texas might be slightly different than that of a breathtaking Caribbean island- haha!) Jen feels so thankful that she and Meag have maintained a friendship throughout the past twenty (how is that possible?!) years of their lives, and she and Jake are so excited that Meag will be “standing up” with them at their wedding!

Jen will never forget the first time she met Shelly in August 2007. Shelly and Jen had both just finished undergrad in Texas (at different universities- they had not met each other yet!), and they both moved to the Chicago area that summer to begin graduate psychology classes in the same doctoral program cohort at Wheaton College. One of their new professors hosted a “welcome” event for their cohort a few nights before classes started. Shelly and Jen arrived at the event at the same time and randomly parked next to each other. When they both got out of their cars, they looked at their license plates and excitedly realized that they were both from Texas (and that Jen used to go fishing with her grandparents as a child in the town where Shel grew up!). That first moment meeting each other in the parking lot sparked a sense of friendship connection between Shelly and Jen that has only grown stronger throughout the past sixteen years. For six years, Shel and Jen had many adventures together in the Chicago area (and for several of those years, they shared a townhouse with their wonderful friend Kathryn- see bridesmaid bio below!). Jen absolutely loves all the fun memories she has from spending time with Shel—everything including bonding over a shared love of the Thursday night NBC lineup, painting “masterpieces” to hang on the dining room wall, making up dance routines to M.I.A. songs, going on road trips to eat at Sonic, taking the L train to Chinatown to eat dim sum (with people Jen met on a plane the day prior!!), randomly driving to the QUAD CITIES (yeaahhhhh!!!) to see a Green Day concert, and staying up waaaaaayyyy too late into the night talking about everything imaginable! (To this day, Jen and Shel have to put pre-determined limits on the amount of time they spend talking on the phone. Otherwise, they both somehow enter an “alternate time dimension” in which many hours pass without their realization!) And, after Shel decided to move out of the “Tanglewood Townhouse” to move into the Lakeview neighborhood of Chicago to be closer to The Second City where she was developing her professional comedy career (this is no joke- Shel is an awesome improv comedian!!), Jen absolutely loved having fun “escapes” into the city to hang out with Shel (sometimes even getting to watch her comedy shows!). Jen describes her years in Chicago as simultaneously some of the best and hardest years of her life, and Shel was a consistent source of support, compassion, and friendship to her throughout the “ups and downs” of those years. Shel has also continued to be an amazing friend to Jen throughout all the post-Chicago-era years of their lives! Despite living far away from each other, Jen and Shel have made an effort to meet up in many parts of the country. Shel is definitely one of the most emotionally intuitive and empathic people on the planet, and Jen feels beyond grateful that she gets to call Shel her friend. Shel currently lives in San Marcos (back in her home state!) with her wonderful husband, Dan. She and Dan are actually expecting a wonderful “bundle of joy” (their first child- a boy!) to be born in early March! If it is possible, Shelly will be “standing up” with Jen and Jake at the wedding. But if Shel cannot physically be there with us, she will no doubt be there in spirit! And we cannot wait to meet her precious baby boy!!

While Jen was in the process of moving from Texas to Chicago to start graduate school (in the summer of 2007), Kathryn was also relocating to Chicago from Michigan to start graduate school in the same psychology doctoral program cohort! They did not know it yet, but Kathryn and Jen were destined to become close friends! Throughout the first semester of graduate school, Kathryn and Jen got to know each other better through listening to each other share their thoughts during class discussions, participating in cohort activities together, and “hanging out” at Shelly’s apartment late every Thursday evening. (They did not have class OR clinical work OR research responsibilities to do on Fridays that first year of their graduate program; it was a blissful time before the “real” graduate school experience kicked in- haha!) Because they loved spending time together so much (and also wanted to save money on housing!), Kathryn, Shelly, and Jen decided to move out of their own apartments after the first year of graduate school and share a townhouse together. Kathryn and Jen then continued to be roommates for five full years (until Jen moved to Pennsylvania for her internship)! At their “Tanglewood Townhouse,” Kathryn and Jen converted one of the bedrooms into their shared office. They spent countless hours in that room together studying, writing papers, and working on their dissertations. Jen’s discussions with Kathryn about the things they were learning through their classes and research helped her to grasp the concepts on much deeper levels. (And sometimes, Shelly would come upstairs and declare a “Google Wars” competition at Kathryn and Jen’s “competing desks”- those were fun and nerdy nights- hahaha!) Jen truly cannot imagine going through the graduate school experience without Kathryn’s friendship and support. Kathryn is one of the brightest, wisest, kindest, and most discerning people Jen knows. Any time that Jen needs to make a big decision (or senses that she needs to grow in a way that is uncomfortable!), she knows that she can consult Kathryn for guidance and compassion. And Jen also feels so thankful for the ways that Kathryn has helped her to get to know the beautiful state of Michigan and all the wonderful family members and friends of Kathryn’s who live in Michigan! One of the best trips Jen has ever taken was the Lake Michigan road trip that Kathryn designed and invited Shelly and Jen to join her on! Kathryn, Shelly, and Jen started in Chicago and spent a full week driving around the entire perimeter of Lake Michigan (up the East side of Wisconsin, through the Upper Peninsula, and back down through the West side of Michigan). It was an amazing trip filled with so many good memories! Jen also feels so grateful for the fact that she and Kathryn have maintained a close friendship in their post-graduate school years, have made it a priority to meet up in several states, and continue to share many professional and personal interests. Kathryn currently lives back in her home state, and she provides integrated behavioral healthcare leadership through her remote work as a psychologist in a large primary care organization in Chicago. Jen and Jake are absolutely thrilled that Kathryn will be there to support them during their wedding weekend!

Molly (Jake’s middle sister) has always been important and instrumental in Jake’s life, keeping Jake close to the family even when he has been physically far away. Jake enjoys remembering the way he always felt close to Molly on the road trips and vacations they took with their family while they were growing up. He also loved getting to experience the adventure of living in Nagoya, Japan, for a year with Molly and their older sister, Brynn, when they were children. One of Jake’s absolute favorite memories is when their Aunt Casey and Uncle Bob took him, Molly, and Brynn on a vacation to Disney World before he and his sisters moved to Japan with their parents. They “ate around the world” at Epcot, and Jake specifically remembers going to the “Japan” section of the park and thinking about how he and his family would be living in the real Japan soon! (Jake also enjoys remembering how he and his sisters rode the bus to an international school together when they were living in Japan. Jake would sometimes pick up the bus driver’s microphone and pretend to shave his face with it. Jake claims that all the older Japanese girls thought he was sooooo “kawaii” (cute). Jen feels skeptical about how “cute” this stunt seemed to his sisters- ha!) Molly currently lives in the Austin area with her wonderful husband, Daniel, and their adorable children, Harvi and Wilder. Jen has always seen how deeply Jake loves his niece and nephew, and Jen is so excited to officially become an aunt to them! Molly is a nurse and recently got promoted to the position of Director of Nursing at a large hospital. Jake says that this position seems to fit Molly perfectly, because she has always been smart, strong, and an amazing caretaker. Jake also says that one thing he has always loved about Molly is how “down to earth” she is and the fact that “you can always count on Molly to be a shoulder for you to cry on and help you through a hard time but also kick you in the butt when you need it and tell you that life is unfair sometimes and that you need to keep going.” Jen also has so much respect for Molly and the way that she manages work and family demands so capably and lovingly. Both Molly and Brynn have welcomed Jen into their family enthusiastically and with open arms, and this means the world to Jen. Jen is beyond grateful to be gaining two new wonderful sisters in her life! Jake and Jen are both so excited that Molly and Brynn will be present and supporting them in many ways during their wedding weekend!

Heather was one of the very first people Jen met after she moved from Amarillo to Kingwood the summer before fifth grade started! To help Jen and her family get to know people in their neighborhood that summer, some of their new neighbors took Jen and her mom and siblings to the Sand Creek Village pool one afternoon. Heather’s mom walked over to introduce herself, and she looked at Jen and said: “Oh, my daughter Heather is your age! She is right over there in the pool!” Right at that moment, Heather’s head burst up out of the water, and she looked at Jen (through her goggles!) and excitedly waved hello. Jen still remembers that her 10-year-old self immediately decided that she wanted to be friends with that fun and exuberant girl in the swimming pool! When the fifth grade started a few weeks later, Jen searched for Heather on the playground and started trying to play the same games Heather was playing. (As it turns out, Heather was the queen of tetherball! Jen (and other kids) tried so hard to beat Heather at tetherball, but it was virtually impossible!) Eventually, Heather noticed that Jen was following her around on the playground (haha!), and she began to spend more time talking with Jen. At that point, it did not take long before Heather and Jen wanted to hang out all the time! Their fifth grade and middle school years were filled with Girl Scouts activities, soccer and basketball practices and games, bike riding and rollerblading, pool parties, and having slumber parties as frequently as their parents would allow. Throughout high school, Heather and Jen enjoyed playing together on the same club and school soccer teams (and spending endless carpool hours together with their parents and teammates!), hanging out at each other’s houses, and doing a lot of the same church youth group activities together. Even as the demands of classes, social relationships, and athletic requirements intensified throughout high school, Heather and Jen found ways to support each other in navigating all the complexities. During their college years, Jen always looked forward to seeing Heather when they both returned to Kingwood for their holiday and summer breaks! In the summer of 2010 (after Jen had been living in Chicago for a few years), Heather decided to fly up to Chicago for a visit. Jen was thrilled, and she will never forget how exciting it was to do all the fun “Chicago” things with Heather! (Jen also remembers that trip was the first time Heather told her about a man named Matt who she had recently started dating and how great he was. As it turns out, Jen would get to be in Heather and Matt’s wedding in Houston just a few years down the road!) Later, in the year that Jen was living in Connecticut, Heather decided to fly from Houston to Hartford for a long weekend! Jen will always remember how special it was to spend a lot of “heart-to-heart” time catching up with Heather that weekend. Heather has one of the biggest hearts in the world, and she enriches the lives of everyone around her with her enthusiasm, passion, humor, sensitivity, and affection. Sometimes when Jen thinks of the last twenty-eight(!!!) years of her friendship with Heather, she pictures a Venn diagram in her mind with an overlapping section between Heather’s “circle” and Jen’s “circle.” At periods of time in their lives, that overlapping section has been large and has included many shared friends, activities, places, and experiences. In other phases of their lives, the overlapping section has been smaller as Heather and Jen have gone to separate colleges, lived in different states, worked in different professions, and developed different groups of friends. But no matter what size the intertwined section is at any given point, it is always there. (And Jen takes great comfort in knowing that her connection to Heather is always there.) Heather is now a wonderful mother to her and Matt’s beautiful young daughter (Kenzie), and Jake and Jen are so excited that Heather will be supporting them in their wedding! (The picture above shows Heather and Jen going to the Homecoming dance together their sophomore year of high school! Jen recently came across this picture at her parents’ house and couldn’t resist sharing this fun “throwback” on the website- hehe!)

Anastasia is Jen’s closest friend from the “Pennsylvania phase” of her life! Anastasia and Jen met on the first day of their predoctoral psychology internship in August 2013. When Jen walked into the building the morning of the first day of internship orientation, Anastasia immediately walked up to her, gave her a warm greeting, and said that she felt happy that she and Jen would be in the same cohort that year. Instantly, Jen felt overcome with a sense of peace. Although Jen was excited about the professional training opportunities that she would get to have in her internship, it was emotionally challenging for her to say goodbye to her friends and her life in Chicago the week prior and move to a state where she did not know anybody. She felt anxious as she drove to the first day of orientation and walked up to the building that morning. But then, there was something about the warm and genuine way that Anastasia greeted her so quickly that melted her anxiety and made her feel optimistic that she was going to have a good year and develop real friendships. Throughout that whole internship year, Anastasia (along with her wonderful husband, Joe) took Jen “under her wing” and made sure that Jen felt socially connected in her new state. Anastasia invited Jen to do so many fun things that she never would have done on her own, including taking trips into Baltimore, eating “all the food” in Philadelphia, dressing up like Sesame Street characters and going out with Joe’s group of friends for Halloween, taking a trip to the beach in Delaware, and learning how to “pick crabs!” (Anastasia and Joe even set Jen up on a few “blind dates” with Joe’s single friends just to see if a new relationship might be on the horizon for Jen that year. Fortunately for Jen’s future relationship with Jake, none of those dates worked out- haha!) When Jen decided that spring to accept a postdoctoral fellowship position in Connecticut for the following year, one of the first things she thought about was how much she was going to miss Anastasia! Fortunately, it turned out that Jen’s move did not diminish her friendship with Anastasia. In fact, Anastasia and Joe kindly opened their home to Jen so she had a place to stay while she was transitioning back to Pennsylvania in the fall of 2015 to start her current job. And even though Jen’s and Anastasia’s houses are an hour away from each other now, they try to see each other as much as possible. Jen loves all the times that she has gotten to meet Anastasia for meals, see Anastasia’s sister and parents, and “hang out” with Anastasia and Joe at their house. In the past few years, it has also been so special for Jen to get to see Anastasia become a wonderful mother to her two beautiful and bright daughters, Penelope and Naomi. Jen loves getting to see those precious girls so much! (The picture above was taken in May 2023- shortly before sweet Naomi was born!) Anastasia is one of the most loving, intelligent, conscientious, tenacious, and resilient people Jen knows. She courageously moved from Russia to the United States (Maryland) to live with her now-adoptive parents when she was in high school. Anastasia did not know more than a few words of English when she started school in the United States, and yet somehow she went straight to a great university in Maryland right out of high school, earned a bachelor’s degree, and then completed both a masters and a doctorate degree in Virginia within the following five years. Anastasia has the talent, intellect, and determination to do anything she puts her mind to, and she does it all with gentleness, compassion, and grace. Jen feels truly lucky that she is able to call Anastasia her friend, and Jake and Jen feel honored that Anastasia will be a part of their wedding!