How did we meet? Well, credit goes to Brooke and Jon (Richie's brother and sister-in-law). I did some work with Jon at LLUH and then the two of them decided that we needed to meet. I guess you could say we were a blind-date gone right. Richie invited me to dinner or frozen yogurt – thus Golden Spoon yogurt was our first agreed upon meet up spot. It was awkward (we ended up with 4 cups of yogurt due to a buy one get one free special) and Richie wasn't sure why I had chosen that over a lovely dinner. Despite a few funny moments, our yogurt date was a resounding success, and we decided that we wanted to get to know each other a little better. Thai food dinner the next weekend set us off on the path of regular dates. My first time down to LA ended with us walking on the beach and Richie asking me to be his girlfriend! And then Richie left for a previously scheduled trip to Panama (wing-suit & sky-diving meet-up) and I headed on an Oregon vacation. Boy did that set the tone for a love to travel relationship! We quickly learned that we both loved adventure and trying new things. We went dirt bike riding, spent time at the lake, “hiked” in LA, indoor skydiving, went on a family vacation to Colorado where I met most of his core group of friends, had many good meals together and went to an amazing lantern festival in the desert. That fall we took off to a side of the world I’d never explored, Singapore and Bali, where we swam in a boat in the sky and I learned how to surf. A first Christmas together, photography adventures into the desert, and then we were already celebrating 1 year together. We traveled up to Oregon and Las Vegas, spent a lot of time exploring LA and spent weekends with family in Loma Linda/Redlands, and I introduced Richie to the family tradition of Knott’s Scary Farm and many hockey games to start the Fall off right. Before we knew it, October 2017 was here and with that came a trip to Iceland that would change everything.

Iceland was breathtaking. The landscape is truly something to experience and we were in awe with every corner we turned and hike we did. Halfway into our trip, after walking on the Interstellar (the movie) glacier and eating a warm meal we set off on a circle hike up to a waterfall and then a glacier lookout. The hike from the waterfall to the glacier lookout was incredible. No one around, vast landscape in all directions, and a hobbit trail that was enchanting. Richie stopped to take in the view and said he wanted to take a few pictures, a very typical activity on any of our adventuring. He called me over to look at how pretty the moss was…strange…but not completely out of character. As I took pictures on my phone, looking away from him, he was rummaging through his bag. He enticed me to see what he was looking at and when I turned around, he was down on one knee. His words were sweet and perfect and the scene that he set was flawless for us. We were on the same page in terms of where our relationship was headed, but it was still a surprise as he had shopped on his own for the most amazing ring. So, here we are in 2019. The adventures and travel experiences haven’t changed much. We’ve done several weekend trips and local exploring and also managed to get in a Toronto trip to visit some dear friends. There is a house in Redondo Beach that we now call home. We’ve loved being engaged and getting to enjoy that season of life and are so looking forward to finally being in the same city. Thank you for celebrating with us! Our family and friends have been a huge part of our adventuring and relationship.