"Optos :^)" That was my very first message to Caleb and it's crazy to look back at how we started as technicians who took Optos photos to now optometrists who interpret them! I was hired alongside Caleb at an optometry practice in downtown Sacramento and the one thing that stood out to me was his voice being the deepest I had ever heard. I remember our first interaction being me freaking out about my first ever paycheck and him going "what, you've never been paid before?" Way to kill my excitement bro. 🙄 I later found out that we were in the same neurobiology class and an Optos photo popped up on the screen because we were learning about the eyes. Naturally, I messaged him because it was something we were familiar with from work and all he said was "lol". At this point, I thought this guy was extremely hard to get through and he probably didn't want to be friends. I usually sit with my housemate in this class but she didn't show up one day so I messaged him asking if I could sit with him because I didn't want to look like a loner. We started to study together and spend more time with each other and I learned that there was so much more to him than just his deep voice... his massive arms. 🤤 After months of talking and getting to know each other better, there was so much more to him than I thought and I wanted these arms to be the ones to take care of me. It was very obvious that he liked me but he still didn't ask me to be his girlfriend. I was getting impatient so I pulled out the dumb "omg do you still like that one girl hahah oh you don't? who do you like then haha" and he said it was me!! Wow, I would've never guessed. But more months passed and he still didn't pop the question. I had to give him one more push and asked him why he hasn't asked me to be his girlfriend yet and then he immediately asked. He proceeded to ask if I wanted to see a magic trick and I said sure so he put his hand out and told me to put mine on top... then he intertwined his fingers with mine jflsajkfsdlaj and that's how he won me over. 😗 Wow... having to type our story out, I realize how desperate I was... but it was all worth it because I knew what I wanted and it ended up being someone who makes me incredibly happy as the love of my life. ❤️

I never thought I'd find someone to love like Kimberly. Before I met her, I had been going through some issues in my life and had decided to focus solely on improving myself and on boosting my grades and portfolio so I could have a chance at getting into optometry school. That included going around the Davis/Sacramento area looking for work and experience at an optometrist’s office, and when I finally got a job offer, I was ecstatic. Little did I know that it would be the best thing that could ever happen to me in more ways than one because that is where I met Kimberly. When I started working with her at the office, I just thought she was another typical nerdy pre-health student, but I immediately made a connection with her. She became my best friend at work who I could ask for help, learn things together with, and vent about work to. I didn’t even have to ask for her number (for work-related things of course) because I had apparently gotten her number without meeting her when my phone got passed around at a pre-optometry club event. It was like things were meant to be. Being in the same year at school meant we also had a lot of similar classes together, and of course she was the smarter one between us so I would always ask to study together. I can truly say that studying with her helped me to raise my GPA enough to get into optometry school. Studying together for hours also led to one of our favorite things to do together: getting food! We would try all the different restaurants around Davis and Sacramento (hit us up for Davis recs if for whatever reason you want to visit Davis), and I definitely gained weight from eating out so much. In terms of love languages I am a big quality time kind of person, so I would look forward to spending hours with her whether it was in the library or walking to downtown to get food or our eventual late night walks, and as I got to know her more and more I truly fell in love with her and knew that she was the one.

We knew we wanted to start our lives together after finishing optometry school but there was no set timeline for when we wanted to get engaged and married. After Kimberly decided to pursue residency and was accepted 2 months prior to graduation, the clock was racing because it meant that the both of us would have to get engaged AND married in the span of 3 months. There was massive planning going on (all on Caleb's part, Kimberly was just straight chillin' hehe) and we managed to get engaged and have our civil ceremony all within a little over a week! 😱 With all of that going on, there was no time to plan for a bigger ceremony where we could celebrate with all our friends and family so we decided to spend this year during Kimberly's residency in Arizona to plan for the big event.