The Journey

Jill's Story

Grew up in Michigan. After graduating HS, I moved to Grand Rapids to attend Grand Valley State University. I studied movement science and received my bachelors degree in 2007. I refused to work in fitness in MI because I was deathly afraid of STAYING in Michigan. I worked at Bar Louie for a while after college which was pretty decent money. During that time, I applied for jobs in Arizona and Florida. I landed a job at Lifetime Fitness in Goodyear AZ as a personal trainer. As soon as I heard, I booked a truck, shipped my car and flew out two weeks later.

Cody's Story

Cody grew up in Washington State. He, like me, couldn't wait to move somewhere warm. He did stick around WA for a year to play soccer, but then packed his things to move to Florida to study at the National Personal Training Institute. This of course led him to a career in fitness also. He did some training in different places, but then ultimately found a home in Goodyear AZ at Lifetime Fitness as well.

How we came together

When I moved to Arizona and started working at Lifetime, I of course met my coworker, Cody. However, Cody was the one person at Lifetime that didn't reach out to me. In turn, by the first weekend I was there, I organized an outing for dinner so I could invite him to go. That first Friday I was in AZ, I went to Outback steakhouse with a few other trainers and DID get Cody to say he'd go (even though I had to buy him a beer to get him to say yes). After that night, we spent every moment outside of work with each other. At work, however, we weren't allowed to date, so we didn't even make eye contact. By the time anyone at work found out that we were even friends, we had been engaged for a few months.

Since We've Been Together

We've enjoyed a handful of trips including camping in WA, weekend trips to MI, Road trips to New Mexico and Las Vegas and of course our Wedding cruise to Bermuda. I love to get away from the norm on weekends when we have time and money to do so.

We bought our first dog, Bailey. She went through some rigorous training with us, but she is our pride and joy now. We don't know what we'd do without her.

Cody and I both left Lifetime Fitness due to extreme circumstances that we won't get into here. That led us to some weird working paths. I took a job as Assistant Fitness Director at Pure Fitness and made Cody come over there as well. We both quickly realized that after working at Lifetime, we couldn't work in fitness anywhere else. After that, Cody, Thank goodness, made some money playing poker while I got a job at Comerica Bank. He then worked part time also at a bank for extra money. We both knew banking wasn't where our passion was. He is now back at Lifetime Fitness in Tempe as the Group Training Coordinator and I am working at GoDaddy.com. Who'd have guessed I would end up in a tech line of work.

We spend our free time working out, relaxing with a movie or good show, playing with Bailey or eating sushi. (Cody was afraid of sushi until he met me). We have some future trips planned that we're excited about. My cousin Sara gets married this Oct. so we'll fly to Fargo ND for that, then we're planning to go to Florida with my family the following March. I'm keeping my eyes open for good deals on cruises too since we had so much fun in Bermuda.