It's TaCo Time!

Kayla and Peter met in Graduate School up at the University of Northern Colorado up in Greeley. Kayla worked at the Native American Student Services and Peter worked at Asian Pacific American Student Services. They initially met during Peter's initial training week where he came in not knowing what to expect. He walked into the living room of the Cultural Center where NASS and APASS shared a space and ran into Kayla while she was eating a breakfast burrito and attempted to say hi but of course caught her mid-bite. They didn't talk very much in that moment since Kayla was busy and anyone who knows Peter knows he can be a talker so she quickly said hi and moved on to the next activity she had to do. During lunch she asked Peter if he could drive them and their other co-worker to lunch to which he happily obliged to try and spend more time with her. From there they became friends as they shared an office and often worked at the same time. Knowing that office romances can be tricky and often times not allowed they kept things professional but Peter would occasionally try and flirt every once in a while and Kayla would respond with some flirting of her own as well. She did go out in Downtown Greeley with Peter and his friends from time to time and of course Peter would make a fool of himself but Kayla still found it endearing. Peter's friends and some of Kayla's friends would try to encourage each not to date since they worked together but they eventually did get closer and closer and found themselves flirting more and more. Eventually they started dating but had to keep things a secret since they still worked together. They would meet up with one another for dinner, to study at the library, and hang out at each other's apartments as much as they can. They were not yet exclusive as Kayla was in her last year of graduate school and Peter was just starting at 3 year program and Kayla was not planning to stick around in Greeley much longer. Soon they took a trip to Glenwood Springs (where Peter would eventually propose) to get away from Greeley to see if they enjoyed each other's company outside of the immediacy of school. They thoroughly enjoyed their time away and decided to become exclusive!

Even though Kayla and Peter became exclusive, Kayla did tell him that she was not exactly ready to become officially his girlfriend just yet. Peter was of course willing to wait! Around this time it was about November of 2017 and they wouldn't become official until October of 2018. Throughout that year they continued to become close and would introduce each other to their friends and family. Peter would try and ask Kayla to become official a couple of times to no avail. At some point Kayla did say yes but quickly retracted it as she was nervous. Peter tried to play it cool (you'd have to ask Kayla if that was true or not lol) and kept being patient but did leave the asking up to Kayla at that point. Towards the end of that school year Kayla had some time between graduation and moving to Las Vegas, Nevada for her new job so she moved in with Peter (the first time) for a few months over the summer before they would become long distance. The distance was hard at first but they quickly figured out what worked and did not work for them and communicated with each other throughout! Around 3-4 months in to Kayla living in Vegas, she came back to Colorado to visit and on October 24th, 2018 finally asked Peter to become official which was also their one year dating anniversary at that point! They continued to be long distance for the next few years where Peter and Kayla would fly back and forth to Vegas and Colorado to visit until late 2021 when Kayla finally moved back to Colorado and officially moved in with Peter!

Between 2018 - 2021, Kayla would send Peter rings to look at over instagram, text, etc. and he had been taking notes on what she liked, didn't like ring, even getting her ring size down. He would dabble in trying to design a ring, pick out ones that she liked and going to jewelers to see what made those unique, even spending time in Jared's and Kay's stores having the employees tell him anything and everything they could about engagement rings so he would know what to look for. Around late 2021 - early 2022, they were in a Jared's when Kayla was first shown her dream diamond, a LEO first light. At that point, seeing the look on her face, Peter knew that no matter what ring he would design it couldn't beat that particular ring. In March of 2022, with his brother by his side, he went into a Kay's to buy the ring. The biggest thing at this point was figuring out how to keep in hidden from Kayla until the time came! All that was left was to figure out the how to the proposal. At the start of 2022 Kayla moved from CU Denver over to Colorado School of Mines where Peter was currently working. She worked for a couple of weeks before her supervisor went on maternity leave for 3 months leaving Kayla to plan their summer program all by herself for the first time. She was incredibly stressed out and needed a break. That's when the plan started to take shape! Peter suggested returning to Glenwood Springs as a quick romantic and relaxing getaway to de-stress to which Kayla agreed! They stayed at the same hotel and planned to go out for drinks, dinner, and maybe do a quick photo shoot together at the top of the mountain where the Glenwood Adventure Park is where they visited back in 2017! In the background, Peter had written out what he wanted to say (yes he would forget everything in the moment but was happy he wrote it down) and worked with his brother, Tayler Jone, to take pictures in secret once he popped the question! To preface, the one thing Kayla asked Peter to do before getting engaged was to have her nails done... and he TRIED his hardest. He offered to pay to get her nails done but she said no, he offered to buy press on's and she said no, he even offered to paint them for her and she still said no so he did give it his best shot! Kayla had just gotten her hair done recently so other than her nails everything was in place! On the day, Peter realized he forgot a tripod to set up his phone so that he could record the whole thing so instead he propped his phone on Kayla's bag so that they could "take a video and then screenshot different points to have the pictures." A nice woman came up and offered to take pictures for us to which Peter initially said no but Kayla was confused and said "why?" Peter conceded but whispered to her that he was about to propose so she took a few pictures then quickly left. At this point they were on top of the mountain overlooking the canyon. With a beautiful view and clear skies, they started posing for pictures in the video and then Peter dropped down to one knee to ask Kayla to marry him. Tayler was taking pictures while all of this was happening which you can see some in the photo gallery on our website here! Of course as Peter was getting the words out he forgot almost everything he had planned to say... stumbling through out of nerves he said "I'm so sorry I forgot what else I was going to say but I can show you later!" which made Kayla laugh so everything was okay (lol)! They snapped a couple more pictures after Kayla said yes and stopped crying and were ready to spend the rest of their lives together!