Meet the Members Monday

Hi friends! My name is Jessica, and I’m married to a first year Navy medical student. My husband, Jesse has prior service with the Navy, completing several deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan, and Africa.

Jesse and I technically have two “how we met” stories. The first time we met, Jesse was in the middle of his first deployment when we were introduced via AOL Instant Messager (yes, some people still use it) by mutual friends. I sent Jesse a hello message to introduce myself. Little did I know, Jesse had just signed up for AIM and thought it was a spam message. Thankfully he responded.

Fast forward four months to the second time we met. Jesse had just come home from deployment and I had just moved into my new apartment. Jesse called me the Saturday after he returned to see what my plans were for the weekend and whether I wanted to meet. The next day, October 14, 2007, Jesse drove to Washington, D.C. from Virginia Beach to take me out on our first date. For those of you who aren’t from the area, the drive between D.C. and Virginia Beach is about six hours round trip. We both agree, however, that this first trek was well worth it because now we get to live happily ever after – we were married in August of 2011.

I grew up in Bucks County, Pennsylvania and moved to Washington, D.C. in 1999 to attend school at the George Washington University. I haven’t left the city since. I even went so far as attending my Masters program on the Washington, D.C. campus of Johns Hopkins University. I currently work on federal policy for a government relations firm. In my free time I enjoy running – on October 13 I will run in my 18^th marathon (I’m hoping to run a marathon in every state one day). I also love date nights with Jesse, reading, yoga, cooking and baking, and following Domino’s Pizza Tracker online.