Somehow, someway, our good old friend we all like to call "Destiny" would find a way to bring us together. Merriam-Webster defines "Destiny" as "a predetermined course of events often held to be an irresistible power or agency". But our "Destiny" is defined just the same except, she is sneaky, persuasive, assertive, dependable, and straightforward. But she also has a great sense of humor and is always down to have a good time and eat good food. We wouldn't be here today if it weren't for one of our closest friends "Destiny". We mean this both figuratively and literally. So yes, in short we were connected with a little bit of serendipity through our Destiny. Vida and Destiny met in 2010 when they were both new to Japan. But we weren't destined to meet until 2013 when Vida was single as a pringle while visiting Destiny in Virginia. So this is where our story begins. All we can remember from that night was that we had a really great conversation. We stayed up talking until about 4:00 in the morning but nothing ever really came about it after our initial encounter. We never stayed in contact or became friends on social media. We simply left it at that. Maybe, subconsciously, we thought it was better that we didn't stay in contact because we both knew we needed some growing up to do.

Five years later, we were finally real grown ups and our friend Destiny tried her hand at matchmaking once again but this time her skills worked. At the time, Vida was having a costume party and Destiny invited Darryl to come. Vida was dressed up as Tina Turner busy laughing and dancing to "Proud Mary" while Darryl was off in the distance showing off his line dancing skills. Little did Darryl know, he had some competition. It so happened that Vida also invited a suitor to her party but the crazy part is that both Darryl and Vida's suitor showed up to the party dressed up as Michael Jackson. Darryl dressed up as "Thriller" MJ and said suitor dressed up as "The Way You Make Me Feel" MJ . Well, turned out, that Vida suggested to her suitor that "he better leave while he can...so beat it" because she was "Hit by - A Smooth Criminal". The next day, that criminal found himself in love after Vida chased down a woman with a pink box of donuts. Fast forward to plenty of flights, months of long distance, and hundreds of FaceTime calls later, here we are about to say our "I do's".