Love across the Atlantic Ocean (plane tickets funding)

Dear (yet unknown) friends and all good people who decide to help us,

We have never done anything like this before, however we decided to give it a try, since we alone are not able to fund our 1 year anniversary get-together. And this wonderful website attracts so many kindhearted and supportive people that it’s almost unbelievable, but thanks to you helpers, dreams of other people can come true… so amazing!  Hopefully our dream can turn into reality too.

My name is Zuzi, I come from Slovakia (Europe). His name is Cory and he lives in South Dakota (USA). Two lovers, two continents and one damn huge ocean between us. To be precise: over 5000 miles apart, 7 time zones and all of this for almost 10 months now. On November 15, 2014 we are going to be together for 1 year. On the same day, Cory will celebrate his 25th birthday. One day before that is my graduation, and on the 28th of November is my birthday too. So many reasons to finally get to be with each other in person, so we together (and with my whole family which he has never met yet) can celebrate our love and life in Slovakia. And then, most importantly end the long-distance relationship and move our love story overseas to the United States.

So, to sum it up - our dream goal: 2 plane tickets = 3,000 $

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But how did it all happen? Well, to be honest, to tell our full love story – one book would not be enough. However, I will try to make it as short as possible for now.

Long story short:

• In August 2007 Zuzi travelled from Slovakia to South Dakota for her exchange semester as a foreign exchange student.
• One month later, Cory saw Zuzi for the first time at the football game. Love at first sight? Maybe… (However due to teenage boy shyness, we only found out 6 years later )
• Two days later Zuzi accepted Cory’s friends request on Facebook. And they remained friends until November 2013
• Between the years 2007 – 2013, as Cory likes to describe it: “life happened”. He got engaged and became a dad to two wonderful daughters, however his fiancée went to look for love in other directions and he ended up heartbroken. Zuzi, in the meantime moved to Austria, started to study at the local university and experienced couple challenging relationships too. But somehow, both of them ended up single.
• In November 2013, (after exchanging thousands of messages and Skype sessions and conversations) they have finally got serious. And said yes to long-distance relationship.
• On Valentine ’s Day (after 4 months in the long-distance relationship) Zuzi and Cory (and his lovely kids) met in person! But Zuzi could have stayed in South Dakota for 1 month only 
• “Before she left i bought her a claddagh ring and proposed, on the day she left the mother of my children got upset and took full physical custody of my children (no written agreement) even though i had done nothing wrong and we had shared custody 50/50 for 2 years! Safe to say that our plans had been quite devastated as i now had to acquire an attorney to get my children back 50/50 after she refused to negotiate. Now we are hopelessly stuck trying to raise money” - Cory
• Since March 2014 until now it has been another 5 months apart
• From March – until June they tried to save up so Cory can fly to Slovakia to meet Zuzi’s family and celebrate their 1 year anniversary together. However, once again: “life happened” and Cory had to start fighting for legal custody of his children, taken away by his ex. Even though there had been shared 50/50 custody for two years with no incident on his side. We had to make a choice and a large part of our savings went to lawyer’s pocket.
• November 15, 2014: ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY: hopefully spent together in Slovakia
• December 2014: Love story “to be continued” in South Dakota. No long-distance anymore! 

Cory (continues)

 “I can’t explain how happy I am to finally be in a relationship with the woman I KNOW I want to marry, and not to mention my children even on their own openly say that they love her too, and she loves them! It makes me so happy to see, but the distance is starting to weigh heavy on our hearts and is making things difficult along with all the financial issues piled on top as well. I had never believed the stress a financial situation could place on a relationship until now along with the thousands of miles of distance; especially with having to pay an attorney to even have the right to see my children as South Dakota did not have shared parenting rights until this very summer!”

So with that being said… Getting me there in November so I can see the love of my life graduate, meet her family and both of us coming back to the states to start our lives together. As we said we have never done this before and are now, as I was laid off from one job and had to hire an attorney for custody of my children and recently landed a job that barely pays the bills, we will be together for one year in November and have only seen each other for one month in all of it. When all we want, so desperately, is to be with each other and start our lives with each other hand in hand, so now we are turning to all of you that can find it in your hearts to PLEASE help us, as each day gets harder and harder .