In September 2019 James spotted me while I was at work one day at Baylor Scott & White Medical Center - Mckinney in the Emergency Department after bringing in a patient. I hadn't noticed him, but James asked some of the nurses in the department about me. After being told I wasn't interested in dating anyone at that time, James decided to have some of his buddies talk to me. Not knowing about James and his friends intentions, I was thrown off after being approached by a few of the Mckinney firefighters and became frustrated thinking that they wanted to flirt with me at work. I told them to leave me alone while I was working and that I'm not at work to flirt with the firefighters. Little did I know that James would still keep tabs on me. 6 months and a pandemic later, James decided to see what I was up to again. After asking about me to some of the day shift nurses, he realized I moved to nightshift and was working the COVID unit so that's why he hadn't seen me in so long. On April 28th 2020 James (finally) messaged me on Facebook. James and I texted everyday for about 2 weeks before our first date on May 6th. James, "since there's nothing to do during these trying times..." Spring of 2020 when everything was closed for indoor dining/activities and social distancing was at a peak, James had to get creative with our first date. The 1st date was at a nature park in Plano, then BBQ at James' house where I beat him in Mario Cart (James swears he let me win but we all know thats not true). Our 2nd date I picked out and it was a drive in movie theater where we shared our first kiss. James picked the 3rd date and took me to the gun range and then made his favorite dinner afterwards. Earlier that day James had gone to Market Street to pick up groceries when a woman approached him-turns out is was my mom! She spotted him in the produce section and decided to talk to him then take a selfie with him and send it to me. Oh gosh I thought this lady had followed James to Market Street and bombarded him (for those who know my mother it is a likely scenario). Anyways our date was still fun but I let James win this time at the gun range since I had beat him in Mario Cart. May 18th James asked me to be his girlfriend and our adventures started from there.

We planned a family vacation with my family back in August 2021 to go to Gatlinburg for Fall 2022. If you know me, I've been poking at James about "putting a ring on it" for a while now. My parents (really my mom) have been looking forward to the trip for a long time. It's not often the Vestal's are able to spend a whole week together with everyones busy schedules. So I suppose this was a perfect time for him to propose-I just wasn't expecting anything since nothing had happened on all of our other trips (*coughs*Hawaii). James and I knew on one of our days in Smoky Mountains , that we wanted to do a 11 mile hike to the top of a peak. Unfortunately I kept pushing off this hike for various reasons. It was the Rainbow Falls trail in Smoky Mountains that we decided to hike on September 18th, and when we got up to the top we ate lunch. James said he wanted a picture of us at the base of the waterfall. I should have known he was up to something because James NEVER wants to take pictures. Well it was at the base of the falls that James surprised me and got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. He couldn't stop smiling and I was in shock that he actually pulled the trigger. You're stuck with me Babe-no refunds. But we got to finish our hike then go back to the cabin and celebrate with my family. It was perfect-even though I messed up his original plan of doing it on the 11 mile hike.