Forever Starts Here

Our story begins at the Tosa WAC, where newbie triathlete Mike wanted to try his hand at swimming more than 1 lap continuously without drowning in the harrowing 4 feet depths of the WAC lap pool. In a stroke of luck coach Leah, an accomplished swimmer herself with impecably high standards saw this diamond in the rough and decided to take him under her wing. In no time, the dynamic duo hit it off as friends and started spending more time outside the pool, namely at the Bel-Aire Cantina where they would regaile their fellow triathletes with stories of PR's and bonking (if you're not a triathlete you wouldn't understand). It was at one of these post-workout taco Thursday's that Mike casually suggested that if he were ever in a state of duress in the pool that it wouldn't be the worst thing if Leah could perform CPR on him. Flash forward to May 2017, the 2 busy triathletes made plans to attend a Kentucky Derby party. They donned their Sunday best attire (and dapper hats to boot) and met under the big top at Maxi's. They spent the next 6 hours listening to the brass band and conversing about life, love and dreams. There must have been something magic in the air that night (or maybe it was the mint julips), but after a wonderful evening as it came time to part ways, Mike leaned in for a kiss on the cheek and asked when he could see her again. The rest is history.

We left for our Italy adventure on Christmas Day in 2019. We spent the first several days in Rome and explored the Coleseum and the Roman Forum. Then we took the train to Florence, Italy. where we would spend a few nights, including New Years Eve. When we checked into our Air B'n'B, our hostess had a "Congratulations" balloon for us...Mike racking his brain wondering if he told the hostess he would propose. New Years Eve we spent exploring the city, walking around Bobli Gardens, walking to the Michelangelo statute, and going on a walking tour around learning the history of the city. Mike kept checking in with restaurants seeing if they happened to have any openings for dinner, but no luck. After our walking tour, we went to the grocery store to pick up some dinner to make at our place. We cooked dinner, had great wine, played Cribbage and talked about our year in review and what we were hoping for the year ahead. We were outside on the patio with live music from somewhere in the neighborhood....fireworks started going off a few minutes before midnight and Mike kept checking his watch, worried he would miss midnight. When midnight rolled around, Mike said he had one more question for me -- to which I said 'yes.' We got to enjoy our engagement bliss the rest of our trip in the Italian country-side.