When I first met Greyson, I actually met him along with his brother, Aiden, and their friends, Zach & Ian, at the dojo. When they joined, I would often teach the beginning of classes. The four of them would talk the whole time I was teaching and all I remember is being annoyed and occasionally making them do extra push ups, hah. Quite honestly, I never really knew who was who. It wasn't until Grey joined the competition team a year or so later that we truly started interacting. Eventually, I just thought of him as another one of the many immature, younger guys on the team. Being on team meant spending a lot of time together as a group so we were all forced to get kind of close, but I still didn't pay much attention to him. We'd spend all day together at tournaments, time together between practices, and him & the rest of the freshman teammates would come say hi to me EVERY morning before school. (I thought they just thought it was cool to spend time in the seniors' hallway.) And when I was gone on vacation, Grey filled my whole locker with notes. They were on my gum wrappers, in my backpack, in my Spanish book, everywhere! But he was still just one of the boys... Then one day in the midst of throwing off my shoes and rushing into practice per usual, someone caught my eye on the other side of the room. I remember pointing and asking Sensei, "Wait... Who's that!?" I was awfully surprised by her response... The once chubby, immature, annoying, long-haired Greyson was suddenly looking pretty good. It was at that moment, I knew I needed to call dibs. ;)

Kelsey and I had talked about getting married for quite a while to the point we knew what date we’d like to set before we were even engaged. A few weeks prior to proposing, Kels found a ring that was perfect for her, but it "sold out"! I had to tell her I already placed an order for it because I’m a horrible liar and couldn't keep that a secret. What she didn’t know is that I already HAD the ring. The night before she left for Davenport, we were Facetiming while she was packing when she mentioned the ring... I somehow pulled it together enough to get her to believe that it didn’t come yet! My plan was to propose to Kels in private after spending a perfect day together, and it was just that. We woke up early, had a hard workout at the gym together, then came back to my place to make a nice breakfast of pancakes and eggs. After lunch, we went and saw an early movie to give us time to figure out dinner. We were looking at new places to go and Kelsey found a nice place with a really good looking lobster dish that I thought would be the perfect meal before proposing. Kelsey insisted that we save that dinner for a special occasion, unbeknownst to her what my plans were... I pressed, “You know this would be reallllllllly good tonight. We should just do it!” She resisted and we ended up going to Barrel House because I didn’t want to spoil the surprise and of course, all Kels could think about was their chicken sandwich. She happily got her meal and we headed on back to my place to set up my Christmas tree (I like it up early!) and bake cookies. We had Christmas music playing, a nice crackling fireplace on the TV, and cookies in the oven when we finished up the tree and I snuck into my room to grab the ring. I finally mustered up the courage to get on one knee, shaking more than ever, and asked Kelsey Christine Sterritt to marry me. Sadly, she instantly replied with, “No way!” Luckily, she had a quick change of heart and followed up with, “Wait, yes! Of course!” Phew.