In typical Niki-fashion, I started feeling restless during my senior year. Would I really graduate just to get a desk job, get married, buy a house, and have kids? Would I work at the same job/cubicle/desk forever? Would I get to travel, like I’d always dreamed? I had already started to learn how life can slip away. So what is a free-spirited, five foot nothing nice girl from the Heartland to do? Join the Army, of course!

I received my first permanent assignment in Germany! I was thrilled; it was a dream come true! For Wade, it meant giving up a job at a great firm and leaving everything. We had known early in our relationship that we would always be together, but hadn’t been in a rush to get married. We decided to pull the trigger and had our beach destination wedding six weeks later. We also got our chiweenie, Bear, in time for the wedding, because why not?

On the day that Wade, Bear, and I arrived in Germany, I found out I’d be deploying to Afghanistan within 90 days. Wait, this wasn’t part of the European dream I’d imagined! Certainly not bringing my new husband to a foreign country to desert him there! When I returned, Wade had a job in tax accounting, spoke German, and had built us a fantastic life full of German beer, culture, and friends. We spent three more amazing years there and traveled to 30 countries. The German years were some of the happiest of our lives.

But alas, all good things must come to an end. After a six month period in the US for some quality Army education (during this period, we picked up our chug, Bean, making us a family or four!), we were South Korea bound for a two year tour!

I got out of the Army from Korea in early 2017 and we began our relationship-long dream of investing in real estate. Great home prices and my BFF within a two hour drive were the main reasons for selecting Milwaukee, a city neither of us had ever been to. That and we are always down for doing the unexpected.