We're so excited to celebrate with you!

We first met on the first day of kindergarten in Mrs. Andrews morning class. We were fortunate to be seated at the same table ('"Red Table"), which Nylah found helpful so she didn't have to make eyes at Tim from across the room. She was quickly impressed with Tim's ability to stack Solo Cup towers and his dashing bowl hair cut style. Equally, Tim noticed her stylish perm, cute dimple smile and precociousness. We didn't know it then, but we were laying the ground work for a friendship and eventually a romance for many years down the road. First grade brought different challenges like a full day of school, adding/subtracting lessons and the concept of recess outside on the playground. Nylah and Tim again shared them together in Mrs Steinberger's 1st grade. class. As our school year's at Scott School progressed and we became Elementary School legends we became quite acquainted with one another. Tim met Mr. Lummer for the first time during second grade when he came to share his heritage and playing the Dreidel game for chocolate coins. Nylah and Tim shared a 4th grade class with fellow ex-pat Texan, Mrs. Abernathy and a mutual passion for our science unit. After 5th grade came and went, Nylah was getting quite bored with Naperville and decided to bounce to the West Coast probably in search of gold or other fortunes. She settled in the wine country town of Santa Rosa with her family. The internet was invented. College came for Nylah and she moved back east to the greatest city east of Chicago...New York. She attended NYU as an undergrad studying Psychology. Tim, meanwhile moved in to a new igloo at the University of North Dakota to studying flying machines. When not ice fishing and freezing, Tim started get nostalgic for those warm IL days of youth, and began to look up old friends from school via Facebook. Nylah, not forgetting his dashing bowl cut from kindergarden, kindly accepted his friendship request - and thus that friendship seed grew.

So...we struck up a casual friendship, then a close friendship....and well we knew we had something special, but being a 471 hour walk apart (yup..that is right) and in our mid 20's we decided to see where life took us. Nylah stayed in NYC and attended grad school and Tim took a jobs both back in Illinois and South Dakota. We met new friends and had new love interests but always seemed to keep finding our way back to each other. Nylah even missed Tim so much, at one point she came back to IL and got pulled over in a construction zone, just so she would have to fly back to IL and have and excuse to go to Noodles with Tim for lunch. Soon, Tim became gainfully employed at his current airline that is similar to Spirit (but with way better duct tape!) he traveled to California a few times to visit Nylah who had relocated back west of Chicago. Each time he visited, a wildfire ensued (definitely a coincidence), so he though it best to give the people of CA a bit of rest with his visits. The seed planted long ago in kindergarten, nurtured through out grade school and college was now well on its way to blooming. Having realized that they both harbor strong feelings for another, but struggled with two burgeoning careers and the physical distance (it had since grown to a 696 hour walk) they were at a bit of a tipping point. As news spread around the world about Covid 19 and each entered our new realities we began to think. Tim, now on paid leave graciously accepted the invitation to move into Casa de Lummer. Backing up into his jalopy he made the trek west helped along by his dad and Nylah and finally arrived in California. While this was not the ideal way to have our story unfold, it did provide us with the final and most important element for our seed to finally blossom...time together. In our long journey we have found our friendship, love and endearing gratitude for how life can surprise you. Through it all, we have always seemed to find our way back together.