We met in a typical, millennial way; the serendipitous swiping right of the dating app. Lyle (I) was living in Mill Valley at the time, Natalie was at the county court and was within range. After a few days of chatting back and forth...radio silence. I figured my "punny" jokes just weren't enough to keep her interested. About a week later, the brown-eyed girl in a Giants jersey sprung back to the top of my messages. While I can't remember the exact message, knowing my generation, it probably resembled something of the sort below: "Hey handsome! WYD? 😉😜 😘 😘 " I wasn't going to let her disappear again, so I got straight to the point and asked her out. After denying me a chance to go see the Rolling Stones (rightfully Natalie went with her mother), we agreed upon a Thursday evening after work; August 22, 2019. I figured if she liked the Rolling Stones, she would probably enjoy beer, dinner, and live music at the hottest restaurant for retirees in San Rafael, Terrapin Crossroads. As I walked into TXR, I saw her sitting at the closest barstool to the entrance...my brown-eyed woman with an old-fashion in hand (no red grenadine, of course). I quickly asked the hostess for a table near the stage so that my sugar magnolia (sorry for the Dead puns) and I could enjoy our dinner without the chatter of aging hippies drowning out the music. I walked up to her. Big, cheesy, grin ladened face, and hugged my future wife for the first time.

As my fiancee will attest, I'm extremely persistent. I was the first to do everything. First to ask if she'd like to be my girlfriend, first to say "I love you", and first to ask her if she'd marry me. I knew right away that I wanted to be with her forever. The first time I asked, she didn't say "no" but demanded I wait at least a year. She held firm to the one-year pilot program. I had a plan since the first time I asked and, no, it wasn't during our planned trip to Barcelona (which got canceled) since that was only 8 months into our relationship. But my plan was becoming increasingly difficult due to "acts of God" as many contract stipulations now state. Let's take a look at the events leading up to the proposal: December 2019 - We move in together. January 1st, 2020 - We ring in the 20's together as a "family". Excited about the high expectations the new "Roaring 20's" were to bring. February 2020 - A virus is quickly spreading across Asia and into Europe. March 3rd, 2020 - Lyle officially is 'work from home'. June-August 2020 - US becomes the most infected country in the world. August 17th, 2020 - Dry lightning storm strikes Northern California. Almost 70k acres of Napa/Sonoma are on fire. August 28th, 2020 - Lyle books Sterling Vineyards for proposal, hoping the fires will disappear by Sept. 13th (one year anniversary). August 29th-Sept 13th, 2020 - Fires still happening. Our one-year anniversary. I invite my best-friend Robert and his wife, Shea, and Natalie's sisters, Emily and Jasmin, to Sterling Vineyards as a surprise. We enjoy some wine and, finally, after reminding her it's been exactly one year, I drop to one knee with a smoke-riddled sky behind us and ask Natalie if she'd marry me.