We were both in the Army, stationed at Fort Campbell, KY. We met in a little town called Kandahar, Afghanistan while on deployment. At first, we found out we had some mutual friends from his time at flight school and then kept on bumping into each other. Nina gave Gavin the nickname "Crew Rest" because as a pilot he had to make sure he got his 8 hours of sleep in and boy would he make a stink when he had to leave work, while Nina on the other hand would work extremely long days and was sleep deprived. We became friends who gave each other crap, especially during fantasy football season. When we returned back to the states, we were back to our two different units, but kept running into each other at work or at the gym. It started out with having dinner together after gym workouts, to hanging out on the weekends. It was blissfully natural and the rest is history...

Gavin had returned from his European deployment and we were able to go with his family, for the first time, on their summer week-long vacation. The location was Dauphin Island, Alabama at a beautiful house on the beach. After the first beach day, everyone was getting ready for dinner, Gavin had said to wear something nice and then asked Nina to dry her hair. She responded with, "It's raining out, I am just going to pull my hair up". Even though it was sprinkling, Gavin wanted to go walk along the beach to look for fishing spots so with a White Claw in hand, Nina went with him. Gavin was jittery during the walk, but Nina didn't think anything of it. As they were returning Gavin asked to finish her White Claw, as he was chucking the empty can behind him he told Nina, "Hey go pick up that trash". There was a glass bottle showing in the sand. Nina thought wow that is weird and he is being bossy, but was like I am on vacation so I don't care and picked up the bottle. Inside the bottle there was a notecard that read "MARRY ME?". She immediately looked around and thought she was ruining someone else's proposal, then thought and said to Gavin, "You better not be joking", and then dropped the bottle in surprise, realizing it was for her when Gavin got down on one knee. He proposed, she said Yes!, and his family cheered on the balcony, they had all been in on it. Happy tears and hugs, Nina quickly said, "Wait, you did ask my dad right?" And Gavin responded with "Yes, I asked your dad and all of your sisters too". Champagne bottles were popped and happy phone calls made. August 11, 2019