When we met, I was finishing up my senior year at the University of Houston and living at home in League City. Mike was still working for the Oakland Raiders and living in Alameda, CA, but happened to be home for the week of the 4th. I'd agreed to go out on the water with some friends to celebrate the holiday and as we got onto our boat, some of the people I was with yelled over to another boat at the dock. I saw a few faces I recognized, but didn't really know anyone. Fast forward an hour or two, we got to a cove in Nassau Bay, where we quickly realized we didn't have a good anchor. Luckily, the boat from the dock was also in that cove, so we tied off to them. I got in the water and was floating around when this handsome stranger struck up a conversation. We talked about school and work and I'm sure other things that I can't recall. Time went by pretty fast, but I guess that's because we were having fun. Before long, it was time to go home. Later that night, I was eating with some of the girls from the boat when one of them saw that Mike McCullough had added her on Instagram. This happened to 2-3 of them before I started to get a little offended. I was the one that had talked to him for most of the day, so what was this guy's problem? I decided to add him (out of spite, obviously). Almost immediately, I got a message saying that he'd been trying to find me, but didn't know my last name and was trying to look through the people I was with. Before he went back to California, we went on two dates and I'm pretty sure by the next week, we were already talking about me going to visit him. And the rest is history...

I wanted it to be the perfect day. Kenzi arrived the night before and we had the whole week to ourselves in Pensacola. The perfect day was going to start out after sleeping in a bit on a Sunday morning. I was going to cook a deluxe breakfast to fuel us for our day of adventure. However, Kenzi wasn't hungry... & the day was off to a rocky start. I wanted to do something active next. Something where we were on our feet and in the sun. We narrowly avoided making fools of ourselves as adults going to a children's ropes course and instead ended up at Ft. Pickens, an old harbor defense base situated on the edge of the beach. We enjoyed climbing on top of a big bunker and checking out all of the different cannons. We hated crawling down tiny tunnels where the gunpowder used to be stored. I hadn't noticed a girl walking by with a camera, but apparently that was enough to give Kenzi a bit of a rush - "WHY WOULD HE PROPOSE WHEN I'M SWEATY?!?!” It was unintentional, but just enough to throw her off my tracks. After, we went home to have a relaxing afternoon, an essential part of the perfect day. A light meal (grilled ham & cheeses) was just enough to get us going again. Next, we went to our favorite brewery. It reminds us of the cool places we’ve been exploring together. We always have interesting conversations and a great time together there - this time was no different. On the way into town I parked at a middle point so she couldn't guess our dinner reservation. It was for 7:30, I told her 7:00. This gave us time to walk & talk through the city where we will start our marriage. She was suspecting of the restaurant, but I wanted one last juke. We got in the truck only to get right out and walk through the middle of downtown to our favorite restaurant. On the way to dinner I needed to "tie my shoes" - classic. I asked her to marry me and she said yes! Then we had all night to celebrate with an excellent meal, champagne and quality time together. It was the perfect day.