Realizing that not everyone attending our wedding currently knows much about me, I'd like to say a few things about myself. I've never had any aspirations to write an autobiography, so please bear with me!

I was born in 1981 in Lombard, Illinois, a town just outside of Chicago. My parents had recently moved there, away from Toronto and their families, for my father's work. My younger brothers, Bryan and Justin, were born in Lombard as well. Unlike Dan, my family moved quite a bit as I was growing up. My memories from Chicago are mostly limited to my friends who lived on our street and the time I spent with them. When I was six years old, we moved to York, Pennsylvania, where we spent the next ten years.

For as long as I can remember I've loved to learn new things and take up new hobbies, a trait which has made me something of a jack of all trades, master of none. Growing up, my hobbies were focused in music. I started piano lessons in first grade with the influence from a friend, and thanks to a program at school I was able to take up the violin in third grade. I begged to tack on the saxophone in fourth grade, but that just didn't fly. My summers were spent playing softball, but I certainly wasn't what you'd call an athlete (far from it, really). Unlike sports, I continued piano lessons and played the violin in orchestra and a local youth symphony all the way into high school.

Then, to my great dismay, we moved to Orange Park, Florida in the summer before my junior year. If you ask my parents, they'll tell you how bitter I was about it. I was a teenager being uprooted from everything and everyone I knew - what more would you expect? However, I made some wonderful new friends in Florida thanks to the outstretched hand of one of the nicest people I've ever known, and I eventually forgave my parents for the move.

I stayed in Florida for college, attending the University of Florida for Materials Science and Engineering. I never watched sports before undergrad, but Gator spirit was extremely contagious. I bought season football tickets all four years I was there and got my fair share of sunburns sitting in the stands doing the gator chomp (Dan, are you cringing??). In the summers, my friends and I would get season passes to Busch Gardens, allowing us to carpool to Tampa for a day of fun on a whim.

I really enjoyed my time at UF, so I guess it isn't that surprising that I ended up at its northern twin, the University of Michigan, for graduate school to study Biomedical Engineering. Everyone in Ann Arbor asks why in the world I left FLORIDA to go to MICHIGAN, and all I can say is I just can't stand the heat. As I endure my fourth winter here part of me is questioning my earlier judgment, but in reality I have no regrets. Foremost in my mind is that I never would have met Dan if I hadn't moved to Ann Arbor, which outweighs any possible negatives one could conceive.

I can't wait for September, and I really hope we'll get to see all of you at the wedding!