On January 20th, 2017, I was running late for a friend's birthday party. I ran to Walmart to grab a cake and ice cream, and as I was leaving I saw a spider man pinata. Thinking it would make for a unique birthday gift, I threw the pinata in my basket and rushed to the party. I arrived late and was overwhelmed by a lot of people that I didn't know, and so I went into the kitchen and was getting everything ready. I noticed a very attractive looking man standing close by me and joking around with friends, but I tried to ignore him because I thought that there was no way he could be single. As I was getting the pinata ready, he started talking to me and offered to help get the pinata and cake ready. I remember thinking that he was so funny and easy to talk to because the last thing I wanted after a long day at school was to have a bunch of "Where are you from?" and "What do you do?" conversations with strangers. Throughout the evening, we sort of would start talking to other people, but kept ending up back with each other. We discovered that we both grew up less then 3 minutes away from each other in Burke, Virginia, but had never met until that night because he went to the local public school and I went to a private school! I went to bed that evening and couldn't stop smiling because I had so much fun. I remember thinking to myself that we had too much of a connection to never see each other again, but thought that he was way too out of my league to ever be interested in me! However, just a few days later he found me on Facebook and we went on our first date that week! He took me on a "Burke Reunion Tour" where we went to our favorite places growing up and talked about our common memories. We went to each other's childhood houses and listened to a soundtrack we made of all our favorite high school songs. As soon as our first date was over, I knew he was someone that I could marry, and sure enough, I was right!!

I had gotten an invitation to our friend's birthday party weeks ago (early January 2017) when a buddy invited me to go out to dinner that Friday. I told him I couldn't because I was celebrating my other friend's birthday and had already committed to being there. For the first half hour I was there, my friends and I were joking and telling stories and being ridiculous. And then I saw a gorgeous woman I'd never seen before - I thought she was probably right around my age and didn't have a ring on her finger (phew!). She was intently focused on stuffing a pinata and getting the cake candles ready and so I offered to help (no self-interest here whatsoever :). It didn't hurt that she had the most beautiful eyes I had ever seen!! Conversation was so fun and easy - I remember one time after one of our conversations that night seeing her talk to another friend of mine and I was thinking, "Dang, why the heck is she talking to him?! I want to talk to her again!" Thankfully, as the birthday group was circling up for a game, I offered to bring her a seat right next to me. The rest of the night we laughed about silly games and talked about random fun things in life. I distinctly remember at the end of the night chickening out by not asking her on a date and just thinking that I would definitely see her again -- praise God that he gave me a second chance just a few days later!! I remember thinking after our first date, "There's something really, really special about this woman," and "I haven't ever felt this romantically connected to any woman before." So here we are, less than a year later, and I can't believe how blessed I am to have Kirsten by my side -- she is so amazing!!