We were at a friend's party Memorial Day weekend, circa 2011. We had been extra chatty the entire night, indulging in our love of water and swimming. Although we were friends, we hadn't ever exchanged numbers. Shane asked me for my number to invite me over to swim with him and our friend, John, sometime. The rest of the night, we engaged in staring contests between the two of us, with our friends cheering on either side (it was some serious competition). Although, I was resilient, Shane won every time. The next day, I received a text from an unknown number, "You'll never beat me in a staring contest ;)". And to this day, I never have.

We were invited to celebrate the love of our friends, Tiffany and Doug, at their wedding in Key West, Florida on 3-1-19. We decided to make a little vacay of it, and flew down to St.Petersburg on 2-26-19. Shane had planned a proposal at sunset, but we missed it! He attempted, multiple times after this, but the timing just wasn't right. The day after the wedding, we headed off to West Palm Beach to catch our flights home. We were sitting on the plane when the attendant said there was a bolt missing and they were waiting on the part to be delivered. Our flight ended up getting delayed resulting in us missing our connecting flight that night {how crazy is that!}, so we decided to stay in West Palm Beach for one more day. The next morning, we woke up before sunrise, got ready, and went to the beach. When the sun had risen above the clouds, Shane pulled me down to the water and asked me to marry him overlooking the sunrise with the sand beneath our feet and the waves of the Atlantic Ocean crashing into us. It was perfect.