About Jennifer
Where were you born? Yuba City, CA – it a small town north of Sacramento. I moved up to Seattle in 2004 to dance professionally with Pacific Northwest Ballet. A year into my first season with PNB, I was walking through a restaurant, slipped and fell and broke my knee. That ended the ballet career.
In your free time what do you like to do?
- Our family loves to spend time outdoors. Bike riding, camping, boating etc.
- I am a craft lover. I can sew (not very well lol) and my current craft of choice is making hand poured soy candles.
- I love “girls night” getting to sit and talk with my friends over a glass of wine or cocktail. (one of the main reasons we have a lounge at the studio ha)
What is your greatest accomplishment? My family (my kids and my husband) and this studio.
Something others might not know about you:
I started dreaming and planning for this studio in 2010. I had a lime green binder that I would write down my ideas and put them in there for “someday”.
Since breaking my knee in 2005 I have worked in several different industries.
I worked for almost 5 years as a medical assistant and surgical tech in dermatology and cardiology. After I broke my knee and I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life… I thought I wanted to become a nurse…so I was going to school for that.
I worked in the restaurant industry for almost 10 years, all front of house jobs: hostess, server, cocktail server and bartender. My favorite job in a restaurant is a cocktail server. I have made some really good friends working in restaurants and that is actually were I met my husband Jerry.
Finally I work for a local property management/real estate company (VerraTerra Property Management) as a property manager. I currently still work there part time.
Jennifer’s Bio:
I started dancing at age 3. As a younger child I took ballet, tap and jazz, but the death of a beloved tap teacher turned my focus to ballet. At age 11 I was invited to join a regional ballet company that was part of a studio I trained at in Sacramento CA. Starting at 12 years old, I would move to Seattle every summer to train with Pacific Northwest Ballet. After 6 summers, (and graduating high school), I moved up to Seattle to dance professionally with PNB, but a year into living here, I fell and broke my knee. I went to rehab for over a year but because of the type of injury I had (chondral fracture) and the cartilage damage I did, I was never able to get back to being pain free in my knee. Actually to this day I still deal with pain in my knee, hence why everything we offer at this studio is low impact exercise. Low impact is the only thing I can do with my knee injury, and I am a firm believer in types of exercise that do not cause injury and/or wear out your body and joints. Working in a restaurant brought me to the Mill Creek area and I actually met my husband while working there…so Mill Creek holds a special place in my heart. I started dreaming about this studio back in 2010. I had a binder that I constantly wrote down my dreams and plans for this place … all the while constantly bugging my husband to let me open a studio. In the meantime I became certified and taught for two different barre franchises. I also got my Schwinn cycling certification and taught cycle for a studio in Bothell…. In 2017 he finally gave into my constant begging, lol, and we started looking at commercial spaces. I was pretty adamant it had to be in Mill Creek since this is the town I met my husband in and we were raising our girls in. When I walked into our space it was a big empty shell, the building was still in the process of being finished…but I knew instantly this was were our space was meant to be. The trees, the outdoor space for a patio, the big windows for the barre studio. Everything about it is perfect. My husband (who owns his own construction company, NightHawk Construction) built the studio space out and I designed it. I wanted this space to feel like home; comfortable and welcoming to everyone who came in, and I think we accomplished that. This little studio is literally a dream come true for me. I am so grateful to be apart of a community that I love so much and excited to watch this place grow and evolve.
