D+A

Alyssa's niece, Temperance, says that our relationship consists of 6 phases. "First ENEMIES, second frenemies, third friends, fourth boyfriend/girlfriend, fifth married, sixth husband and wife." Alyssa and Derek met on August 29, 2018 when Alyssa walked through the entrance doors of Derek’s job that morning. Derek was Alyssa’s clinical preceptor for her last semester of nursing school and nothing more (scandalous!). Everything was going smoothly, until Alyssa had trouble placing an IV on the patients, as most students do. After another unsuccessful IV attempt, Derek allegedly said to her that "I don't get why you can't get it, all my other students can," thus entering enemies phase. Alyssa left the hospital after that long work day, upset and in rage and went straight to the school to work on her IV skills on a plastic dummy. She then returned back the next day bright and early to show Derek her newly found IV skills. Derek was undoubtedly impressed that she would go out of her way to practice after a long work day when most students would not and this is when Derek knew she was a special person. From there they became frenemies and then friends as they spent more time together and then they were almost inseparable at the hip from start of the shift to the end, where they would walk each other to their cars. On Alyssa’s last day, she brought a gift for another staff members' baby shower. After that nurse was sent home early, it was discovered that Alyssa left her keys in the gift bag and thus Derek had to drive Alyssa on a 1.5 hour roundtrip drive to get her keys. It was there, that they agreed to go on a date. :)

Alyssa only had two requirements for me before I could propose to her: 1. She wanted to have dated me for 2 years. 2. She wanted me to have finish reading through the Bible. First thing first, I had to get her nails done as her nails got ruined hiking in CO from a trip we just came back from 2 days prior. I told Alyssa that morning that I wanted to celebrate our 2yr anniversary in the DFW area so I had a surprise for her and I was coming to pick her up. The first surprise was getting her nails done, which surprisingly did not raise any suspicion from her. During this, I told her from here we were going to go back to her house and she was to find a nice dress for the evening and to pack her things for an overnight stay. Again, no suspicion! After she got dressed, I drove her to the Dallas Arboretum, where awaiting for us was her sister and my sister getting a private garden set up for my proposal. We entered the park and walked around until I was to get the go ahead. Finally, my sister texted me that they were ready and so I told Alyssa "there's a hidden garden I wanted to look at!" So I led her to this pathway where white rose petals on the ground led us down these stairs. At the end of the stairs was an beautiful patch of grass with a water fountain as a backdrop and an assemble of pictures of us in front of it. In the middle of the pictures sat a white wooden crate that when lifted had a QR code to Spotify. I had her scan the code and immediately a playlist that I had curated of romantic songs filled the garden. In the wooden box were momentos from the years from our relationship. At the end, there was a note that said look at the bottom. At the bottom, hidden beneath confetti paper, sat a custom made book. The book was a story of our relationship through the 6 phases! The story ends with, I have a question for you....It was there, I pulled out my bible and read the last verse, thus completing it. And it was there, I grabbed her hand and got on one knee :)