In eighth grade, her family moved to Farmington, Missouri. That same year, in the school cafeteria, he told her some day he was going to marry her. She laughed. He was right. We graduated high school and went our separate ways, but remained good friends and somehow always found our way back to each other. She moved to Columbia, Missouri and knocked out a couple of degrees before relocating to Florida, while he moved from St. Louis, to Arizona, and then Panama City, Panama. We logged many hours on Skype and the phone, and sent countless emails and texts, but the distance always kept us from pursuing something more. In the summer of 2017, he came from Panama to visit her in Florida. Two weeks later, he came back and we took a road trip to South Carolina. Two weeks after that, she flew to Panama. For the next eleven months, we traveled! We traveled at least every other weekend to see each other, usually him to her, but also meeting in South Carolina, Georgia, Missouri, and for a cruise to the Bahamas. We were fortunate to celebrate the weddings of two beautiful couples in Wisconsin (Hi, Seth and Jackie!) and Cabo San Lucas (Hi, Carlye and Erin!). As much as we love traveling together, eleven months was more than enough time apart and in May, 2018, he moved from South Carolina to Florida to be close to her and we moved AGAIN in June/July 2018. About the time we got unpacked, we decided on a random Sunday afternoon to purchase a house - so we moved one more time on December 1st, 2017! We're finally settled somewhere we can both call home, and we are ready to settle down with each other! We love our story, we love our life together, we love each other, and we love all of you. We are so glad you will be celebrating with us, either in person or in heart, and we hope to see you in April!

When we were thirteen, he told me he was going to marry me in the school cafeteria. In my second year of college, he came to visit and told me he was going to marry me as we took a nighttime walk across the Mizzou campus. When he lived in Arizona and I was working on her Masters degree at Mizzou, he sent me 100 lilies and told me he was going to marry me. When he lived in Panama and I had moved to Florida, he told me distance was a ridiculous reason not to give this a shot, because he was going to marry me. When we met in Florida a few weeks later, he told me he was going to marry me and he wouldn't be able to make it a year before proposing. One day before our first anniversary, I had an evening meeting and Tim was supposed to pick up the keys to our new home. We planned to meet at the new house after my meeting, but it ran late and I was about an hour and a half later than I had planned to meet him. I let him know when we were done, and because it was raining he offered to come pick me up and drive me to my car since it is a bit of a walk. We arrived at the house and he told me to wait in the car because he only had the keys for the backdoor with him. I was suspicious, but I waited at the front door where a lovely sunflower was waiting on the porch. He opened the door, and the empty living room and dining room were strung with lights and twine. Hanging from the twine were pictures of us from the past seventeen years, ticket stubs from shows and sporting events we've attended together, matchbooks from bars and restaurants we've visited together, corks from bottles of champagne we've celebrated with, and all the other memories he'd saved. After we'd walked around the room talking about all the memories we've shared together, he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. It wasn't for the last time (because he asks me every day), but for the best time. He was right every time - and he was right he wouldn't make it a year.