When I was 14 years old, my family was going through job loss, so we moved from Texas to Indiana. I first met Tim at a local high school game in December of 1995 when I tagged along with my oldest sister. The following school year, she moved back to Texas to graduate with her friends and entrusted Tim to “take care of me” as I began my freshman year in high school. By October of 1996, we had become best friends and began dating. We’ve been laughing together and been inseparable ever since.

As 18 year old newlyweds and young parents, we seldomly spent time alone. It never felt fair to vacation without our girls. Now that they’ve grown up, we’ve started taking time for us. Our favorite memory was a recent 2 week road trip through Europe to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary. There was a moment when we looked at each other on a beautiful stretch of Switzerland’s landscape and thought, “After all these years, we’re still best friends, laugh together, and deeply love each other.”

With $20,000, we would do one of two things: 1. Pay off debt and book a vacation 2. Use the money to go towards buying acres of land to begin building our dream retirement space.