The way we met was somewhat out of the ordinary. One day, I (Rebekah) got a message on Instagram from a stranger that said "Hey I know you don't know me but I just thought you were cute and I would love to get to know you." At that point, I didn't think anything of it, just some random guy being nice. We ended up exchanging information and talking a lot every day. After some time, we realized we had a lot of random coincidences and things in common. We both grew up in Yorba Linda and went to the same middle school and high school, though we are two grades apart. I lived only a few houses away from one of his good friends and he lived a few houses away from family friends that I grew up with. My sister Rachel and his brother Eddie were even friends in middle school! This was also in July of 2020 (we all know what that time was like) so we were connecting virtually for a long time. Eventually, we finally met , hit it off immediately, and the rest is history!

As I said, we had been talking virtually for a while before we decided to meet up in person. We went to a hike called Black Star Canyon, which I did not know was 8 miles. Let's just say it was a long hike in the beginning of August and it wasn't exactly pleasant. After that encounter, I was surprised he still was interested in me, and apparently he felt the same way. Regardless, we had many more fun dates and experiences together over the next year and a half. We loved to just get food and talk, go new places, and sometimes play board games. We watched countless movies together and just had fun doing anything we could think of.

One of the biggest challenges we have faced so far was Noah's choice to join the military. It was around our 1 year anniversary when he told me he was thinking of joining and I was very scared. I was worried about how difficult it would be for us with him being away and how it would affect the future of our relationship. Nevertheless, after many months of him preparing to go into the military, he left for basic training on January 25th, 2022. Being apart was so hard, as long distance is. During basic training, he was able to call 10 minutes a week and we wrote several letters to each other. After a long 7.5 weeks, I flew out to see him at his graduation and we had an amazing day together. After basic training, we were able to talk more and facetime while he was in tech school for the next 4 months.

Noah came to California to visit for two weeks in August 2022 while he did the recruiters assistance program. We were so excited to see each other after being apart for so many months and we did so much together. On August 6th, we went to the park for what was supposed to just be a picnic. At some point, he brought me to an area where we looked out onto the lake and he proposed! I was so happy and couldn't say anything but yes. Later that day, we had a dinner with both our families and loved seeing all their reactions!