It was Fall 2013 in the athletic training room at Santa Ana College where Alicia was working her first job out of college as an athletic trainer and Mike was starting his second semester as an athletic training student. As many of you close to them know, fall in athletics is busy with long hours, late nights and weekends spent working preparing for the athletes and covering games. Through this time Alicia and Mike were able to create a friendship, that for Mike was more than just a friendship. Because of this, when the semester ended and Mike was no longer Alicia’s student intern, he jumped at the chance to take their relationship to the next level and he asked her out on a date. Alicia agreed and they began casually dating and getting to know each other on a deeper level. However, Alicia was awaiting to hear back from PA schools for which she had applied to out of state and knew if she got in it would mean moving and having little to no free time, so she was treading lightly with her relationship with Mike as to not become too attached. As the year ended Alicia found out she did not get into PA school, allowing her to turn her focus onto Mike and their relationship they have been cultivating together. Alicia realized she had been falling for Mike as Mike too had been falling for Alicia. They decided to make it official January 5, 2014, despite many friends and family assuming they had already been together many months prior.

On October 3, 2020 Mike and Alicia had plans to grab dinner with friends who were taking them out to thank Mike for his help through their home renovations. As you all know Alicia had been not so patiently waiting for Mike to propose, so in her mind this would be the perfect cover story for a surprise proposal. When she showed up to meet Mike at his house, she scanned him top to bottom to see if he was hiding a ring box in any of his pockets. To her disappointment, she did not see one. She was very upset but did not want to ruin the fun evening that was planned so she took the drive to the restaurant to talk herself down from the ledge. During this drive Mike could tell Alicia was upset, he did his best to lighten the mood and bring causal conversation between them, however, Alicia was not having it and would not interact with him. As they were exiting the freeway, they got a call from their friends who said they were ‘running late’. Mike replied, “no worries, I think there is a park around here.” He very casually looked at his map to find the park and proceeded to drive there. As they got out of the car, Alicia saw this bridge that overlooked the beach and asked Mike if they could go there while they were waiting for their friends. (Side note: Mike knew as soon as Alicia saw that bridge, she would want to walk there which was his entire plan and that was where he had is camera crew set up to capture the moment) They made it to the end of the bridge and as they stood overlooking the ocean Mike talked about the past 5 years, the great memories they have made, how crazy of a year 2020 was, how cool it has been to grow so close to Alicia’s family. As he finished his last statement and he turned to her, got down on his knee and pulled out the ring. Alicia immediately began crying, there were screams and celebration from the friends they were going to meet who were supposed to be “late” and from the friends who had been hiding to capture this perfect moment of 2020.