This is our attempt to tell you a little bit about the 10+ years leading up to the wedding on January 18, 2020 and why Dani is #DownTheAisleToKyle and #KeepingTheK. If this isn’t a story based on fate and true love I don’t know what is. As you read, know that in some way you have been a part of this story. You are someone who has shaped us as individuals, contributed to our happiness, been in our lives, supported our relationship, and ultimately led us to this point. How is it that two kids in a suburb of Houston, TX with a population of nearly 100,000 people would just so happen to meet in an 8th grade homeroom, become friends, fall in puppy love, grow apart, have a high school crush, grow close, fall in love, travel the world, develop together, become literally separated by the world’s two largest oceans, then get engaged some umpteen years down the line? Well, it’s all because both their last names started with a “K”, our public-school system, and the fact that she is extremely cute. Soooo maybe this is just a story based on logic and persistence.

August 2005, the first day of 8th grade, I walk into home room and see the girl of my dreams. I may not have known that then, but I did realize that there was something special about that beautiful green/hazel-eyed girl. Every time I saw her I got excited and scared at the same time! It took a few months but I did work up the courage later that school year to ask her out. Success, she said yes! Then I was “forced” to dump her when her mom wouldn’t let her go to the movies with me on a Friday night. (Which, by the way, could have easily been the single biggest mistake of my life.) Luckily for me though, that’s not where this fairytale ends.

The rest of 8th, 9th, 10th, and most of 11th grade pass as we see each other in the halls, talk here and there at school functions, and when our groups of friends happened to make our paths cross. Then some of those same friends brought us back together nearing the end of the 11th grade school year. I distinctly remember when she realized my true charm: it was after a high school football game she had just cheered at. She gave me a lift to the other end of the parking lot where my car was parked. (If you went to school in Texas you would know how meaningful that ride was considering the heat combined with the size of our school parking lots.) Impressively, I embarrassed myself, insulted her, and lost my phone all during that 3 minutes car ride. We spent that entire next summer together, only separating for hours at a time to run home and let our families know we were still alive. We were surrounded by friends, soaking up the summer sun, and spending the nights getting to know each other. I worked up the courage yet again (this time with some of Dani’s influence) to ask her to be my girlfriend…again. Just know that I had to agree to the caveat that if I ever so much as wavered over a Friday night movie date that I would likely be a dead man.

Of course, a few weeks later I would be going across the Appalachian Mountains, some 1,800 miles away for school, and the girl of my dreams was staying in Texas. That last year of high school was us falling asleep on the phone talking about our different senior year experiences peppered with surprise visits including one for our senior prom. That school year was just preparation for the next five years of our relationship which consisted of nightly skype dates and meeting up only when school would allow, a week or two at a time. During those years we would meet in Texas for spring breaks, West Virginia for Thanksgivings, Dubai for Christmases, and back to Texas in the summers. Counting down day-by-day and longing for those few days that we would see one another quickly made our high-school-sweetheart-phase become something much more. What we learned went well beyond what we needed for our college degrees. We were setting the groundwork for our future together. Shortly after graduation I was headed back to Texas to start my career, and Dani was staying in state for the next phase of her life, graduate studies. FINALLY, the same state again! We were going to be geographically close! (That was also when we learned just how big Texas is… Houston and Lubbock are separated by the Texas Plains. That equates precisely to: 550 miles, 27 tumbleweeds, a 9.5 hour drive, 43 cotton fields, and a total of 4 “trees” taller than 6ft.) This was just another step in our individual development that was required to build on our already sturdy foundation. I was working in the Mid-stream Oil and Gas industry based in Houston, TX and she was wrapping up her Geology Masters program. It was all about to come together! Those of you who are familiar with the last few moves required to solve a Rubik’s cube will understand that there is some organized chaos that has to occur to get the last few colors situated.

We started off with my job taking me to Singapore for half the year, at the same time Dani was scheduled to graduate and dive into her Oil and Gas career. So now we were separated by both of the world’s largest oceans, but I was slated to be back in Houston (you know, Houston…the Oil and Gas Industry hub) in six short months. Little did she know, shortly after my departure for Southeast Asia, plans were set in motion that would change our lives forever. A jeweler in New York, NY was setting a stone in the ring that I would use to ask her to marry me in April of that year. Danielle’s family had approved my request to ask for her hand. Sure, my dad would have to inspect the quality and dimensions of the diamond, my mother would still have to smuggle it into Singapore, and I would nearly get busted at airport security on the way to Indonesia in front of Dani days before the proposal…I was seconds from having to resort to a proposal in airport security! But those are small details in the flawless plan I was about to execute. Then, like clockwork, weeks before she was set to come to visit me in Singapore for her birthday, she accepted a job with an Oil and Gas Company. Can you believe it? Nope, me either. Just like we planned! This particular oil and gas job is not in the obvious-nearly-inevitable location of Houston but instead Austin, TX, the most liberal city in the state. Don’t worry, we spent the formative years of our relationship training for little hiccups like this. All I had to do was make it official. After over 24 hours of travel and days of leading her on, we set out on a day-tour around Bali that Dani had planned for us. What she didn’t know at this point was behind the scenes I had been making accommodations with the guide for a private waterfall visit complete with flowers, champagne, and a diamond ring.

We were separated by the logic of a dumb boy in 8th grade who wanted to go to the movies on a Friday night date, the hustle and bustle of high school, a mountain chain, the vast plains of Texas, and the world’s oceans, yet there we were 4,614 days after meeting her in that home room class, 3,167 days after I finally asked her out in high school, 655 days before we vow our love to each other in front of all of you, when I asked the woman of my dreams to marry me under Sekumple waterfalls in Bali, Indonesia. Since then we have finally aligned the stars that we have been shifting for years. We live together under one roof in Dripping Springs, TX with our dog Kyanite. It’s been a whirlwind, but I can’t imagine life any other way! (Also, we never got into a single disagreement or argument along the way.)