About Us

History:
Jason was born in Pennsylvania in and grew up at Byler's Farm near Slatedale. He attended Northern Lehigh High School and Lehigh County Vo-Tech School where he studied Carpentry. After high school, he worked at Durkee-French Foods for about two years before leaving to attend Goshen College in Goshen, Indiana.
Janine was born in Virginia. When she was 2 years old, her family moved to Ohio for her Dad to attend graduate school. From there, they moved to Illinois where her Dad taught at ISU, Millikin University, and finally Illinois Wesleyan. Janine graduated from Normal Community High School and then went on to attend Goshen College in Goshen, Indiana.
We met at Goshen College where shared a mailbox, and thus, got to read each other's mail. We dated on and off through college. Jason graduated a the year before Janine and lived in Indiana and Kentucky while Janine was finishing college. While in Kentucky, he proposed to Janine. Luckily, she said yes. Well, actually, she first said, "Are you SERIOUS?" After she graduated, she moved back to her parents' house in Illinois. Jason soon followed. They were married at Mennonite Church of Normal.
Soon afterwards, we moved to Michigan for Jason to work at Amigo Centre as their Outdoor Education Coordinator. Janine got a job at Norman and Paulsen PC, a local CPA firm. After living in Michigan, we moved to Pennsylvania in order to take care of Jason's parents' farm while they spent time overseas.  While they were on the farm, Janine worked at Frey CPA's.  In addition to managing the family farm, Jason also worked part time in the winters as a ski instructor at Blue Mountain Ski Area. During this time, Janine's Dad passed away in Illinois and we both felt very far from family. So when Jason's parents returned to the farm after three years in Central America, Jason looked for jobs in the midwest in order to be closer to her family. He soon found a job at Ebersole Environmental Center near Wayland, Michigan.  For the first 3 weeks, he lived in their unfinished, Serro Scotty camper Janine had to stay in Pennsylvania and finish her tax season work, but in May, she also moved to Michigan.  She also lived in the camper for three days, and then our marriage was saved by our friend Nancy, who found a place for us to stay in her parents basement.
fter about a month there, we found a little old house with a great big barn.  It was the first house we ever bought instead of renting.
Soon after moving into the house, we started the process of adopting a child.  Janine worked full time on paperwork for a few months and then decided to get a part time accounting job in addition. She first worked at a firm in Grand Rapids, but now works for a small CPA firm in Kalamazoo.
In 2006, we finally had the opportunity to adopt a baby.  Isaac came into our lives.  He is the best and cutest kid in the world (of course) and we are enjoying every minute with him.