Two teams are becoming one!

We met in our high school's NJROTC unit. Mark was a sophomore and I was a freshman. Although we never dated in high school, Mark remembers wanting to ask me to dance at our Military Ball but his nerves got the best of him. Mark graduated in 2010 and went on to Parris Island to become a Marine. I graduated high school in 2011 and went on to complete my AA (PHCC) and Bachelor’s Degree in Elementary Education (Saint Leo University). We continued to stay in contact throughout Mark’s deployments and Marine Corps career. When Mark came back to civilan life, he started talking to me more. We started out by texting and messaging on Facebook twenty questions which in turn became twenty thousand questions. As we began finding out more information about each other, we became more interested in each other. We started our “dating” stage by having Skype dates due to our school schedules since he was working on his Bachelor’s Degree in Culinary Management and I was finishing up my degree and internships. We then went on our first “real” date in person. We watched Hitch and ate popcorn. The next date Mark turned to me and asked “So should we make this offical?”. A perfect way to make me laugh and obviously say YES! The rest as they say is history. We had some ups and downs over the years (5 years to date) but we always put each other first and continued to love, laugh, pray, and communicate together!

The Proposal took quite a bit of time to plan. One of my high school buddies was home on leave with his wife for his little sister’s birthday. He had informed me that he wanted to take her on her first Disney trip and asked Laura and I to join them; I knew this was the right moment. I let him and his wife know of my idea, ensuring Laura would have zero idea, and we proceeded to come up with a game plan. I knew going through security would be virtually impossible to hide the ring. So I passed it off to my buddie’s wife to later give it back once we entered the park. The plan was to take pictures in front of the castle. The question was whether to wait until the fireworks, or first thing in the park. My problem was quickly resolved when I learned Laura had to leave early to go back to the Summer camp she was counseling at; first thing in the park it was. We got into a good picture position in front of the castle. Starting with my buddy’s family, we began taking different pictures of everyone. Then the time came for Laura and I to get our picture. Still oblivious to what’s going on, my heart racing, my mind frantically focusing on not dropping the ring, I waited for my cue that we had originally planned of “ lets take a funny picture!”. The moment came, Laura trying to genuinely take a funny picture by sticking her tongue out, I said “ how about this for a funny picture?” I got down on one knee, and asked the love of my life to marry me. By far the most anxiety inducing but favorite day of my life.