Alicia & Matt In Michigan

We met when Alicia was an 18 year old undergrad at Saint Louis University in the fall of 2007, and Matt was in Graduate School. We were both members of Blue Crew, the basketball fan group. Despite distance, our friendship never died, and we always kept in touch.

We are a bit of a Covid romance. If not for Covid, we would not have had the opportunity to talk as much, and Alicia would not have been able to visit Kentucky. Matt proposed during a Lord of the Rings Movie Marathon Day that included following a Hobbit eating schedule in 2021. Alicia said yes, and the wedding was July 30th, 2022.

Alicia is a licensed elementary school teacher with a Masters Degree in Education. Matt holds a PhD in Biology and is a research scientist at Van Andel Research Institute conducting cancer research with a focus on arsenic induced lung cancer.

We have one dog named Stewie. He is part Beagle and part Boston Terrier. Alicia was gifted the adoption of Stewie as an undergraduate graduation present in the spring of 2017. Stewie met Matt within a few months, and they loved each other from the start. Stewie is great with children and is an absolute favorite of our niece and nephew as he is their size!

We enjoy doing everything together, no matter what it is! We enjoy spending time at home with our dog Stewie, playing video games, playing Chess and other board games, going for walks, and many other activities. We haven't done a lot of traveling together yet, but look forward to doing more, and look forward to traveling with our future child.

We recently purchased a 3 bedroom home in Kentwood, Michigan. Kentwood is home to the most diverse public school district in the state and the 3rd most diverse district in the country. As a teacher in the Kentwood Public School District, Alicia is very confident in the quality of education our children will receive

Our house is in a great community, which has a community pool and is located near a public park and an elementary school playground. We look forward to putting a fence in our yard so we can have our future children and dog run around and play outside.

We are so excited that our new home has the perfect nursery. It has beautifully hand painted clouds and grass throughout, and has a custom hand painted Winnie the Pooh complete with a balloon and honeypot and bees. We will be thrilled to carry the Winnie the Pooh theme throughout the decorating and furnishing decisions we make. Having studied and experience regarding child development, Alicia keeps up with current best practices and is excited to ensure they are utilized in the design and layout of a nursery to ensure our future child has the best opportunities possible from the first day we bring them home.

Both Alicia and her brother were adopted, as was one cousin of Alicia’s and one cousin of Matt’s, along with Matt’s father. Alicia grew up sharing her home with women who were experiencing homelessness during pregnancy, with the final total being 13 women throughout the years.

Alicia's maternal extended family has reunions every 4th of July and Christmas. The Christmas celebrations alternate every other year between Minnesota and Wisconsin, as Alicia's mother was born and raised in Wisconsin. Alicia's father was raised in Mississippi, and Alicia enjoyed visiting her grandparents there until they passed away.

Matt comes from a small family. Matt's father is an only child, Matt's mother has one sister, and Matt has one brother. Everyone in Matt's extended family lives in Ohio and are able to casually gather for every holiday.

To begin our own immediate family traditions, we split Thanksgiving and Christmas one for each side and alternate which family gets which holiday. We make sure the holiday sharing schedule matches up with Alicia's brother and sister-in-law's holiday sharing schedule with her sister-in-law's mother in Costa Rica. That way we are able to spend every other Christmas with them and our absolutely adored nieces and nephew. Isabella is our 3.5 year old niece, Thomas is our 1.5 year old nephew, and we have another niece on the way in September 2023.

Alicia has known from age 19 that it would not be possible for her to conceive and carry a pregnancy to term, and Matt was aware of this before they started dating. As there is quite a family history of adoption on both sides and Alicia being adopted herself, we truly believe in adoption as a beautiful way to create a family and can’t wait to create and complete our family.