Depending on who you ask, you might get a slightly different version of this story. But the mildly shorter version of a long story is that we met at Baylor Garland. I was employed in the Emergency Department working as a brand new nurse and Dakota was working as a paramedic for CareFlite. Across a couple interactions that originated while we were both caring for patients, we became fast friends and spent a few long shifts sitting together just talking about life and getting to know one another. It seemed innocent to me at the time, but Dakota had other plans in mind... Fast forward to St. Patty's Day 2016, I had a Facebook message from Dakota asking to hang out over the holiday weekend. I was taken aback and I think my words to my friends were "Oh my gosh, y'all know that Dakota guy at work? He messaged me on Facebook but I'm not going to message him back for a few days. So weird!" You know - typical girl stuff. I think after a few weeks I gave in and acknowledged that he messaged me on Facebook during a shift at work, and we made plans to hang out in a group setting. A couple Sundays later it ended up just me, Dakota, and Clayton (holla for being a great wing man) spending a lovely day listening to a live band in Plano, going to Top Golf in Allen, and then grabbing some drinks off lower Greenville. I was still not convinced that Dakota and I were anything but friends and we remained just friends for a good while. There was a rejected kiss on the cheek, a declined dinner date, and a LOT of perseverance on Dakota's end... I had plans to leave the Dallas area and pursue my career as a travel nurse so I didn't want to get "tied down". Low and behold that sweet, charming, hilarious personality of Dakota's got to me and I ended up saying "I think I'll let you take me on that dinner date now". And the rest, as they say, is history :-) But keep on reading if you wanna know more of our story!

So if you really want to get the big picture of this story, we are going to have to rewind back to June of 2017. I remember a feeling that came over me one day, it wasn't a special day or anything but I just knew I was feeling something. I was planning on going over to my parents house that afternoon to hang out and a couple hours before I left, it finally hit me. The next stepping stone was being laid out in front of me and I hadn't even realized what it was. For so long I felt like I had met the perfect girl and was content with everything in our relationship, but marriage was not yet on my mind. But as my family and I sat on the back patio that day, I told them everything that I was feeling and officially decided that I want to spend the rest of my life with Leslie. Of course they were 100% for it and could not have been more excited to hear my realization. Little did I know that's when the intense planning and strategic maneuvering was going to begin and would continue over the next 6 months... Fast forward to December 2017. I decided to take Leslie back to where it all began - the place that we first told each other that we loved one another back in 2015 was at Reunion Tower. She was about to start her travel nursing career and she needed to know how I felt about her... Thankfully she felt the same way! Okay, back to my plan for December 21st, 2017. I wanted to take her back to Reunion Tower but I knew that she would suspect something if it was just for a normal dinner. So I waited until her birthday (I know... but if you know her and her talent for ruining surprises, then you understand) so that I could disguise the occasion for a greater surprise. I got all of our family and friends to go to the top of Reunion Tower earlier in the evening to wait for our elevator ride up. With 6 months of planning complete, I knew it had become surreal when not only did she say yes, but it made her speechless for the first time in her life!