My best friend at the time, Andrew Aguilar, invited me to a party in Moorpark. As we were headed there, he mentioned that some of his friends from Newbury Park would be there too. As we walked up to the house, I saw a small group of girls standing in front of the house. There was one that stood out, but I tried not to stare. I was so excited when Andrew finally introduced me to Chelsea. We went into the party to mingle while I tried to control my neck from turning her direction. As the weeks went on we began to bump into each other at more and more social events. I watched from afar as she made everyone around her laugh and as she stood up for any of her friends that needed her. I would casually ask Andrew sometimes if he knew what Chelsea was up to. Eventually Chelsea and I exchanged numbers and started texting back and fourth. We started hanging out independently of Andrew and started to learn more about each other. I couldn't help but want her as my girlfriend, but the time wasn't right. After I graduated high school, I moved to San Francisco, but we continued to stay in contact. Chelsea visited me a few times while I lived in San Francisco and I treasured seeing my old crush. Over the years we talked less, but we still teased each other over facebook and texted on birthdays.

Near the end of 2021, Cari started texting Chelsea to see how she'd been. One random day in early January Cari called Chelsea to check in and found out Chelsea had Covid. Cari was working at Trader Joes at the time and offered to bring her groceries. Chelsea first agreed, but then decided she didn't want Cari to see her in her sick state. A couple weeks later, Chelsea was Covid free and invited Cari to her house warming party at her new place. Cari eagerly accepted the invite and was excited to see Chelsea as it had been over a year since they had seen each other. On January 22nd of 2022, Cari came to Chelsea's house for the house warming. Chelsea introduced Cari to all of her friends and they had a great time at her new place. After that night, the two almost never left each others side. They filled each other in with what they had missed over the years they had been apart. Cari knew within the first year that she was going to propose. She started looking for rings, asking her friends and family for advice and on August 27th 2023 Cari proposed to Chelsea on a beautiful private beach in LA. Cari was overjoyed with the easy "of course" from Chelsea.