Bumble, the online dating app. This particular app gives the woman the ability to make the first contact, so as to avoid any unwanted solicitation. You know what I mean. His pictures were full of family and of course Steelers. We talked for about a week through text and calls before he asked me on our first date. We met at Nino's Italian, which is a locally owned restaurant south of Birmingham. It was a good choice. We ended up talking about all kinds of things and before we knew it, we were the only ones left in the restaurant and they had locked the doors and were cleaning. The nice workers didn't want to kick us out. I think they knew it was a first date. It seemed like shutting down the restaurants we went too over the next few dates would be a trend.

Our second date was two days later, on the last free Saturday he would have for a while before being swamped with football and other sports for the fall. We decided to explore Birmingham and started with brunch at Big Bad Breakfast where he found out about my love for coffee and was disturbed by my hate for eggs. Next we checked out the museum and statue at Vulcan park overlooking the city. This is where I made him take our first picture. He hates taking photos. After Vulcan, we headed over to the Civil Rights Institute, where we talked about our backgrounds, church, and other deeper topics the museum invoked. It was getting late, but we both didn't want the date to end, so I suggested a drink and he took us to his favorite brewery from his Regions Baseball days, Good People. A few beers and some fun questions from some childhood game we both were getting hungry again. Walking back to the car, I told him he needed to hold my hand because I like to wander when I'm tipsy. He happily obliged. It totally may have been a line, but it wasn't a lie. We ended the night closing down the downtown Dreamland barbeque place. This time they did kick us out. A full 8 hours after our date began, we were back outside his apartment. Before helping me into my car he stopped me and we had our first kiss.

We decided to take advantage of the annual passes to Disney World we purchased and planned a last minute trip for his birthday at the beginning of February. We weren’t interested in watching the fireworks from the front of the castle as we had already seen them, and we wanted to take advantage of the shorter lines for rides during the show. We had a reservation for seven dwarfs mine train at 8:15 pm, and were standing in front of the ride. At this location we were between the smaller fireworks coming off the castle and the larger fireworks coming from behind the park. Right at the end as I’m watching the show, he pulls out a red box and states “You know we werent getting away from here without doing this”. I immediately started crying, cause yes, I didnt think it was going to happen yet, but it did. I said yes, and he put the ring on my finger. We rode the ride and I showed off the ring to the ride camera. We then went to the front of the castle to get official photos done and call family.