Jess & Brad

We are Brad and Jess! Our story started out like a lot of couples do these days-online. A swipe right, a funny line about life, we scheduled our first date. We quickly realized we might just be the perfect match for one another. Eight years later we’re happily married loving the life we’ve built together.

We’ve enjoyed many adventures together. Four wheeling/camping trips with friends, weekends at Brad’s family lake house, Sunday family dinners with Jess’s family, and family trips with both our extended families. We also love exploring new places—whether it’s a quick getaway close to home or traveling as far as Saint Lucia.

By trade Jess is a social worker protecting children for 20 years. Brad has been a CFO at a local credit union for 10 years. We’re both grateful for careers that are challenging and fulfilling that allow us the flexibility to work from home most days. We would be honored to connect with you and share more about who we are, our values, and the love we have to give.

After years of searching, we found our forever home in the town Brad was raised in. We live in a four-bedroom home on 5 acres. We fell in love with our house when we saw the huge open concept. Jess instantly envisioned our family making Brad’s favorite childhood recipes and her mom’s pasta sauce. We make it a point to eat together nightly.

We love our community because we're close to shopping, great restaurants, outdoor activities, and good schools. We're also within a one hour drive of two major cities.

We enjoy taking our dogs (Jax and Myles) to the parks for long walks or jumping on our four-wheeler and heading to friends’ houses for rides through the cornfields. When we're not hanging out outside, you'll find us cozy on the couch, with the dogs, a fire in the fireplace and watching sports.

Our home is full of happiness, love, and a few dog barks! Adding a child's laughter would truly be the best thing to happen to us.

Family means everything to us! We're fortunate to have Brad’s family nearby. He has one older brother, who he considers his best friend. Brad’s mom, unfortunately, passed away when he was in his early 20’s. His parents met very young and were married for 28 years. Both of his parents came from large families and were all very close. Brad is very close to his dad and he’s always up to help with a house project whenever needed.

Jess’s family all live within an hour of us. Jess is the oldest of three. Jess’s parents are both still alive and together after 45 years. Her sister and her wife are 30 minutes away from us, and her brother, his wife and their growing family are one hour away. We see them weekly, especially for Jess’s mom’s cooking. Being Uncle Brad and TT (aunt) is so special to us.

We have been lucky enough to unite our immediate and extended family into one as they all get along wonderfully and enjoy spending time with one another. One thing we bonded over in our early years of dating was our love for our grandma’s and the meaning family meant to them. Although both our grandmas have passed on, we know they are so proud of us for continuing their tradition of family gatherings.

Adoption has always been a huge part of our conversations when we talked about growing our family. Jess’s best friend since childhood is adopted. Professionally, being a social worker, adoption is a huge part of her job. Brad has grown very close to Jess’s friend and has a coworker who is an adoptive parent.

We have faced our own infertility obstacles, which brought us closer together as a couple. This also ended up being a huge blessing, as it led us to find out very early on that Jess had cancer and needed a hysterectomy. Thankfully she is very healthy now and this just let us know that God had a different path for us to becoming parents.

Knowing the joy of how adoption has touched our family and friends has opened our hearts and desire even more to adoption.