I got very lucky on our date for two reasons. The first reason being that he waited for me because I had an appointment that ran late and had I made him wait longer he wouldn't have been there waiting to meet me. The second reason being I met a stranger on the internet for a motorcycle ride, was not kidnapped or harmed and ended up finding my soulmate. I should have led with that reason. We had an amazing first date, apparently so amazing he had me meeting his best friend at a fireworks show. We didn't want the night to end. Thankfully feeling that the first date was successful was completely mutual and from that moment on every free moment we had was spent in each other's company. Because of us spending so much time together I started to think about what it would feel like if we didn't spend so much time together. I didn't like that thought, so I made the move to take our relationship to the next level and asked Joseph to be my boyfriend. I have never felt more vulnerable putting myself out there, but it paid off because he was the next one to take our relationship further and asked me to marry him almost two years later.

To this day I will be forever impressed that Joe was able to surprise me by proposing a year to the date we wanted to get married. The number 25 has a very big significance to my mother, sister and me. I personally believe numbers tell stories. A few months before our engagement I had a dream about a wedding invitation for us and the date on it was 05/25/2025. I immediately told Joe because to me it was the perfect date. Joes' reaction was that he'd always envisioned a holiday weekend wedding. We pulled up the calendar and were both shocked to see it fell on Memorial Day Weekend. All of this gave me chills in the best way possible and I immediately became that girl anxiously waiting for the proposal. On May 25th, 2024, I woke up to a normal day. Joe seemed calm and collected; we had run some mundane errands and I was promised a bike ride. When he had mentioned a bike ride, I thought " this is it, it's going to happen." Joe being so clever he kept being aloof as if his trip to Verizon was more important than our bike ride. We were running out of time, and he certainly was taking his time at Verizon. I soon started to accept that the proposal was not happening that day. Finaly, we got on our bike ride, and I had been on a few with him that month with no proposal, so I was convinced this was just another ride. I even sneakily looked at his saddle bag and found no ring box. I started to get cold and tapped Joe's shoulder to pull over once we got to Bear Notch. I remember taking a photo of Joe in front of the beautiful scenery but noticed his uncomfortable expression, so I told him to move over so I could get a photo of just the landscape seeing as he clearly did not want his photo taken. I got my photo and heard Joe clear his throat, I turned around to see him down on one knee. It was the perfect moment that I will forever cherish.