Brenden and I met at my niece Chloe’s 2nd birthday. Brenden and my future brother-in-law, Chris, have been best friends since high school and he invited Brenden to the party. Brenden had asked Chris if there were going to be any single ladies and Chris said, “Yeah, Christina’s sister, Marissa.” Brenden had an early morning flight to California, missed it, and quickly decided he did not want to miss the party (I will assume it was because he wanted to see me)! He booked a different flight and made it to the party just in time. It wasn’t until the end of the party when Brenden started making googley eyes at me from the jacuzzi. The end of the night was history and we exchanged phone numbers the next morning. I forgot to text him back that next day and thought maybe he would text me the following day. I was wrong, he never texted me back again and I thought, “Oh well!” One day I was having lunch with my parents and my sister when my dad casually mentioned, “Chris’s friend, Brenden, seems like a nice guy. What do you think?” I decided to take action and “plan” a Labor Day trip with my family to Arizona to visit some family but to also see Brenden. I knew he would be invited to hang out with us all weekend (but no one knew that). Labor Day weekend came and Brenden showed up to our hotel and we were both wearing a white shirt and black shorts. Later that night we went to dinner and we ordered the exact same dinner entree (not intentional) and I found out his birthday is a day after mine. I thought, “Wow, we are so alike.” As the weekend went on we were hanging out in the pool at my Aunt’s house and the first thing he said was, “What’s your middle name?” I replied, “Leanne.” He then said, “Marissa Leanne Moe. I like the sound of that. How many kids do you want?” I thought, “Boy he moves fast!” We planned for him to come visit me in San Diego the following month and it was the best weekend ever. Since then, we have never been apart! ❤️