Once upon a time . . .

It was the summer of 2004 and we had just finished a long day of marching band camp at Somerset High when I saw Justin walking through the parking lot with his drums and he totally stopped me in my tracks. "Who's THAT!?" were the exact words that flew out of my mouth. I was the freshman with a crush on the handsome, to-cool-for-school senior drummer. We became friends that year and spent the whole summer together after Justin graduated. Time passed, life got busy, and we both went our own ways. Three years later, we fatefully reconnected, thanks to my sweet man-of-honor, Andrew. He and I were at a drum corps performance in Bristol and went to sign up for a newsletter list on a clipboard. Well, who had signed up right above Andrew even though hundreds of people had been at the performance over the course of two days? You guessed it - Justin! Andrew made me call him that night. We picked up like we hadn't missed a beat, started dating on August 28, 2007, and the rest was history. Eleven years, 4 degrees between the two of us, countless vacations, and enough memories for a lifetime, we were in our favorite place in the world, Disneyland. Justin took me for pictures in front of Sleeping Beauty's castle, got down on one knee, told me he loved me, and asked me to marry him! We've always felt blessed to have our own fairytale story but that moment truly topped anything we could have ever dreamed of. We faithfully live by the motto "never grow up" and have learned to find the joy in every ordinary moment and every big adventure. We've learned that with love and each other we can face anything head on and succeed. We feel so blessed and appreciateive for the life we share, because at one time we wished and dreamed for these days. Our wedding day will be celebrated on our thirteenth dating anniversary, and we are unimaginably excited to keep our very special date after all these years. This is only the beginning for us, but our future sure looks magical!