Meet Us In JT!

Story as told by Andrea and verified by Anthony: On a chilly Monday night in December of 2017 I came home from work to my roommate and Master-Chef cooking dinner for him and his friend (you guessed it) Anthony! I had just moved into Ryan’s place a few weeks prior so I had never met Anthony before. Ryan introduced us and I remember thinking Anthony was cute (check), had great style (double check) but learned that he lived in Orange County (oh no!) I had a pretty strict “no dating outside of LA because commuting around here is hell” rule so when I learned the news I gave him the “It was nice to meet you, gotta go!” routine and thought nothing of it. That Saturday I came home from a shift working in Malibu and after a long drive home to Koreatown - I was pooped. I spent the next hour and a half decompressing in my room. The smell of Ryan’s stew lured me out to the living room and to my surprise - Anthony! We were now about two weeks out from Christmas and I was badgering Ryan to get a Christmas Tree when Anthony offered to drive us all. He had his super cool VW Bus and said we could just throw the tree on top. I was sold! We loaded into the bus and off we went to a tree lot in the very festive Von’s parking lot. Once we returned home we put up the tree, played Christmas music and Anthony helped me string the lights and put on ornaments. I think Ryan saw what was going on and stepped back - made us drinks and played some sweet jazz drums. There was a moment when I was watching Anthony decorate the tree when my life flashed forward 10 years to our own house, our own tree, our own kids doing this very same thing. I felt something I had never felt with anyone else. We hung out all day the next day, went on our first official date that Wednesday and have been pretty much inseparable ever since. It turns out that commuting to Orange County every other weekend isn’t so bad when you’re in love!

This story is short and sweet! Anthony had planned a camping trip for us in Point Mugu in August - a much needed get-out-of-our-house trip during covid. The first night of our camping trip was just going to be us so we planned out a little sunset picnic. We had our wines, our cheeses and A RING! Anthony set up a tripod to get a photo of us and unbeknownst to me - had started recording a video. He got down on one knee and popped the question. We were both SO EXCITED! Best camping trip ever.