We met in high school during our sophomore year at Kalani High School. We sat next to each other in Mr. Yamaguchi’s social studies class and often grouped together for classwork along with our mutual friend Steph Kaji. Throughout high school, we occasionally hung out together with our circle of friends and exchange greetings in passing. It was not until college that we got closer and were hanging out more often. With our friend, Dennis Kim, we were going out to the beach, the mall, to eat, and even the occasional bars and clubs. One of our favorite places to go was Nordstrom Café to get their plantation iced teas along with their tomato bisque. As we were preparing to get into the College of Education to pursue our teaching degrees, we took many classes together such as Elementary math, theater class, world history, and etc. Theater class was the most memorable of all our classes together because we had to get out of our comfort zone and act in front or with each other. Our first theater class was so uncomfortable that we dropped out the first day and signed up the following semester with another instructor. We spent countless hours together in and out of school from attending class, working on projects and schoolwork, and hanging out after class. We both started our semester into the College of Education in Fall 2014 and were placed in different cohorts. Jessica pursued Early Childhood and Elementary Education while Denis only pursued Elementary education. We saw each other often since all of our classes were near each other. During lunch breaks, we took turns buying food for each other either from the food court or Bale. Our favorite thing to eat was the Cobb salad from the food court! We still talk about how good it was to this day. Naturally, our feelings grew for each other and we officially started dating on October 15, 2015. For the past 9 years, we grew and matured, experienced, and went through many life changes. From getting rid of Jessica’s strict early curfew to moving out together and living on our own, our life has completely changed. We have traveled to Las Vegas, Arizona, Japan, and Korea. Our love for Japanese food and culture has allowed us to travel to Japan several times. We still plan on going many more times! Jessica pursued teaching at Haha’ione Elementary School and Denis was able to find a career at Pearl Harbor after realizing that teaching was not for him. You could often find us eating out as our love for food was as strong as our love for each other. Our dates mostly consisted of trying new places to eat. A lot of our food choices did come from Jessica’s cravings after watching her favorite YouTube mukbang channels. It allowed us to eat a lot of foods that we never would have thought of eating! Our favorite shows to watch is MasterChef, Hell’s Kitchen, and other cooking shows. We enjoy watching and re-watching movies like Twilight, Harry Potter, Jurassic Park, Studio Ghibli, and most movies with sharks/alligators. We also love watching anime but our taste differ slightly, although Denis ends up watching the shows that Jessica wants to watch. On December of 2022, we went on a spontaneous trip to Japan and Denis proposed to Jessica on Christmas Eve at Tokyo Lab. It was a proposal that has a funny backstory and didn't go quite as planned, but it ended up working out in the end. As we prepare for our wedding day on December 14, 2024 at Cafe Julia, we would love for you to come and celebrate our love and witness the beginning of our new chapter together.