Welcome to our Happily Ever After

The story begins at the age of 12 in a small town middle school. Leticia, the sporty new girl in school, and Joey, the long-established nerd and insufferable teenage boy, quickly became friends and, a few short months later, "boyfriend/girlfriend". Their young relationship blossomed as Leticia kept it hidden from her parents as she wasn't allowed to date. These two spent countless late nights on yahoo messenger with each other, talking about everything and anything. Common subjects included gymnastics and soccer practices, math class, their next movie night, and if there was any way Joey was allowed to go to the middle school dances on Friday nights. Sixth grade sweethearts sounds unfair to say but it also might be the closest thing to the truth. Neither of them realized where this early love would take them. But sadly, their first chapter ended as Joey threw a crumpled up note at Leticia in history class, breaking up with her and starting the next stage of their early lives together. Why did they break up you may ask? Not even Joey remembers. We fast forward through Leticia throwing a pie in Joey's face as he left Windsor Charter Academy. The two joined different eighth grade classes and continued to stay separate for high school. During this time, they stayed friends with infrequent but personal check-ins while both drifted off into their own separate worlds. College would keep Leticia near home at University of Northern Colorado balancing a nursing degree with working and helping take care of her younger brother and rising wrestling star, Dominick. Joey, willfully ignorant of how pleasant life was in Colorado, packed up his truck and headed to the University of Texas at Dallas setting himself up to continue his time in Dallas at pursuing his medical degree. Fast forward again to March 2020. The pandemic struck bringing Joey back to Colorado as everybody was encouraged to quarantine at home. After a few months at home, it was unclear when Joey's normal life in Dallas would resume and he started to feel quite isolated. Fortunately, the first person he felt drawn to reconnect with was Leticia leading him to reach out. Luckily for him, he still had her phone number memorized and was pulled back to an earlier time in their lives as her contact popped up as "Leticia/sock/bestie(:". To say she was excited was an understatement. There was always that ‘what if’ in her head about the two of them. They met up for coffee and a walk around Windsor Lake. Catching each other up about what the last 5 years had looked like. It didn’t take long for these two to see each other again as Joey couldn't leave the parking lot of their walk without sending her a text invite for a group camping trip up in Rocky Mountain National Park. Nobody could’ve guessed that this “group” activity would turn into their first date to forever. It was just so easy.

That summer, Joey and Leticia were inseparable as they built the foundation for a relationship with an uncertain path forward. Before Joey made the trip back to Dallas to continue medical school, the two joined a few close friends in Aspen for a long weekend away. Hiking through the Maroon Bells, they decided to take a shot at "dating" from a distance knowing their relationship was going to look quite different rather soon. For the next three years, Joey and Leticia dated long distance balancing medical school and nursing residency with long phone calls. Fortunately, Leticia was willing to spend much of her spare time flying back and forth from Denver to Dallas squeezing short trips in every few weeks to keep the love alive. Joey showed her around Dallas, they frequented many local breweries (Manhattan Project and Community Brewing) and coffee shops (White Rhino and Katy Coffee Lab) while wandering through the best nature they could find (the Katy Trail, White Rock Lake, and the Dallas Arboretum). Slowly but surely, Leticia started to integrate into Joey's life in Dallas intent on stealing all of his best friends. It was only a matter of time until Leticia would end up moving her life to join Joey. In early 2023, Leticia packed up a couple of suitcases and bought a one way ticket to Boston to join Joey and his three male roommates. Sharing one bathroom among the five of them and lulled to sleep by the sounds of Prospect Avenue traffic, a new chapter began for Joey and Leticia. From Boston, they packed a U-Haul full of their lives and moved together to Dallas for Joey’s final year of school. During that year, Joey, Leticia, and their closest friend Nid volunteered for a month in Roatan, Honduras at a small medical clinic near and dear to Leticia's families heart. Joey surprised Leticia on the beach with a ring on one knee, where she first responded 'shut up!' and then quickly realized the better answer was 'yes!'. In the spirit of major changes, Leticia then surprised everyone by falling in love with a photo of a dog that she could not live without. A short flight and some key support from Leticia's family later, Timber (named after a lake from their first date) joined the budding family. A few short months later, another move was ahead of them as Match Day approached and a white envelope would set the trajectory of their lives for the next few years. Luckily for Timber, a cold location was their next stop. Joey's medical residency and Leticia's new job as a cardiac surgical nurse was the next step at the Harvard affiliate, Massachusetts General Hospital back in Boston. They packed up a moving Pod and began their road trip to a new part of their lives as Bostonians where the happiest one of the three was Timber as he fell in love with the snow, hiking, frisbee, and made more friends than Leticia and Joey combined.