Our paths had been on a slow convergence long before we met. Alex was still living on the east coast when Nicole moved to Boston for school. As we both grew sick of the cold, dark winters, we found ourselves heading to sunny SoCal to start the next great adventure - Nicole was crushing her way through data engineering, roller derby, & picking up a scraggly little pup from Craigslist while Alex dove into the weird realm of fungi-farming beetles, obnoxiously long trail runs, & all but giving up on dating sites. One fateful day in July, Alex randomly checked his OKCupid account for the first time in months to find that Nicole had messaged him a day or two before - what luck! and with a pickup line only a fool could ignore … "sick knee tats!" Between that & her profile pic with the cutest puppy, Alex was super excited to start chatting & attempting to make plans to meet up for about a month. So they finally found a day they were both in town & free to meet, but had no clue what to do. In true Nicole fashion, she messaged Alex a day or two beforehand saying she randomly got two free tickets to Knott's Berry Farm theme park. In true alex fashion, he anxiously cleaned his dusty car & ironed about 5 shirts before going with an old t-shirt. While they both later admitted to feeling like they were going to barf after riding a couple of roller coasters, they were having a blast, but Nicole needed to go check on Mia (she was still in her wall-chewing phase). So they went back to Irvine, then decided to continue their date by going to the weird, underground gay bar in Laguna Beach where Nicole promptly ordered a 24 oz PBR when offered a drink from some rand-o at the end of the bar. The green flags continued when last call came & they both agreed that a late-night skinny dip in the ocean was the best way to end an amazing first date. And the dates continued like this - lunch plans turning into hiking plans turning into dinner plans turning into sleep overs, brunch, game of thrones marathons - they quickly became inseparable. They moved in together, picked up another random, neurotic dog (we love you, Butters!), & started planning their next adventures as a family. Through everything that's happened from our first date until now, there has been one true constant - neither of us could imagine a world without the other. We are so deeply in love & proud to share that with you!