First and foremost, welcome! We are so glad you are here.
We are your typical suburban family, living in Roswell, GA, trying our best to raise kids who love Jesus and love others. We want our kids to grow up believing that positive community is powerful, that serving others is always more exciting than serving yourself, and that traveling often is normal. 😉
To give you a quick background, Matt and I met when we were 16 through a matchmaker fundraiser that our high school put on every year around Valentine’s Day. Every person received a list of the top 10 people you would most likely be attracted to and the top 10 people who would most likely be attracted to you. How those things are different, I’m not exactly sure, but Matt Nelsen showed up on the top of both of my lists and meeting him seemed like the next obvious step.
Because I didn’t have a shy bone in my body and because I was naive as naive could be at 16, I found him the hallway one day and said, “Hi, I’m Heather McKenzie, and you were the #1 person on both sides of my matchmaker list!” And because Matt was and is one of the nicest people in the entire world, he responded kindly and somehow didn’t think I was a weirdo.
We ended up dating through high school and college (Furman for him and Clemson for me- GO TIGERS!), and got married on November 17, 2007.
Becoming parents was a long and hard journey for us, but experiencing infertility and miscarriage strengthened our relationships with the Lord and with each other, and ultimately made us appreciate the opportunity to be parents so, so much.
Our first baby, Ryan Matthew Nelsen, was born on July 28, 2014. And miraculously and surprisingly, his two sisters were born soon after: Natalie Grace on February 17, 2016 and Emily Merritt on June 18, 2017.
Raising our babies has been the greatest joy of our lives. We try hard to see the positive in every day and soak up this time with our little ones at home because everyone says these days go by so fast.
We hope you find encouragement in this space and see us as your friends, whether or not we ever get to meet face to face.
You can learn more about us and read about our family mission statement here.
