Picture a high school geology class at everyone's favorite Ramona High: aka "rock class", or for more of a visual--the class for all of the upper class students who either failed chemistry (ERIN) or forgot to register for freshman physical science when they were freshmen and too proud to retake it with all of the ninth graders (RUSSELL). Erin is sitting peacefully in her chair before class starts, and stage right enters Russell wearing anchor blue "beyond baggy" jeans, bright yellow snowboarding jacket and too much hair gel. She thinks to herself briefly, "who the hell wears that????". The year goes on, Russell frequently tries to flirt with Erin, and mostly she considers him a nice but very weird guy who probably smokes a lot. Russell is given a rare chance when he is paired up with Erin for a group project, where it was decided that he would make the poster board and she would write the report. All is good, until the day of the presentation when Erin comes to class and Russell is MIA. While she has an internal panic attack, eventually he shows up at the end of class WITHOUT the notorious poster board. When questioned about this, he simply says, "Oh my mom is doing it for me right now, and she is going to bring it at lunch". Erin: "BUT WE HAVE TO PRESENT RIGHT NOW!! WHAT DO YOU MEAN SHE IS BRINGING IT AT LUNCH???!!! That doesn't help us RIGHT NOW!" You can already see where this story is headed... They go on for the year and some of the next as friends, each dating other people. Senior year, after a group Halloween outing to The Haunted Hotel in San Diego, newly single Russell and Erin are both riding home in a car together, where somewhere in the chain of events things go almost too far. Before everything goes completely past the point of no return, Russell says to Erin, "Hey, I don't think this is going to last very long between us, and we will probably break up, but would you want to go out maybe?". To which Erin responds, "...uhhh...OK...". OH HOW ROMANTIC...

Despite how we started out (in all seriousness), we have weathered a lot of storms as a couple, and have quite literally grown up together. Over the past 16 years, we have managed to survive each other's baggage, poverty, credit card debt, family problems, early mid life crisis, job changes, differences in religion/politics/world views, three years of graduate school with long distance relationship crap, Erin's job doing disgusting things all day, and Russell's attempt at reviving a dying small business, only to have it strengthen our friendship and commitment to one another. That being said, we have worked hard and deserve (without a doubt) this moment where we finally make it a forever thing. And we are so happy that everyone we love will be there to witness it and to make sure we actually go through with it. Thank you to anyone who has helped us to keep our shit together, and we hope you enjoy this as much as we will. Amen. XOXO