The Story of Us

College days

Our wedding day

We met during the Fall 2000 semester at Texas A&M University-Commerce.  We were friends at first, spending lots of time together in groups of mutual friends, but we figured out quickly that there was a deeper connection between the two of us. We officially started dating on November 1, 2000 and soon realized that marriage would be in our future.  We continued to grow closer and more in love with each other over the next two years, and the big proposal came on December 2, 2002 during a special ceremony in front of our sorority sisters and fraternity brothers. We celebrated our wedding day on July 24, 2004 as we said our vows before our closest family and friends at the First Baptist Church in Rockwall, Texas. Over the next four years, we began our teaching careers, moved to a new town, traveled to Australia, Western Europe, and the Mediterranean, bought our first cars and built our first home. We decided around our fourth anniversary that we would like to settle down and start a family, a sweet addition to our four-legged babies Bizkit and Grayvee that we had adopted when we were still in college. We learned we were expecting our first child in January 2009 and delivered a precious baby boy, Tucker Levi, on September 9, 2009. Our worlds were turned upside-down when we discovered Tucker was born with a serious heart defect which would require multiple open-heart surgeries, but we trusted that our marriage and our faith in God would sustain us. It has been a long road, but we are so proud of our little miracle, and we are bound by a deeper love for each other and for God because of it. You can read  more about Tucker's story by clicking on "The Tucker Story" tab. We welcomed our second son, Finley Thomas (Finn), on May 16, 2012. After losing our beloved Bizkit, we added Rowdy to our family. Rowdy is half black-lab, half Great Dane and his name is very fitting!

Bizkit & Grayvee

Rowdy, the Great Labra-Dane

Trent holds a Masters degree in educational administration and is an assistant principal at Piner Middle School in Sherman, Texas. Dena holds a Masters degree in library sciences with certification in school librarianship and is the librarian at Sherman High School in Sherman, Texas.

Our family of 3!

Brothers, friends forever!