Love, Laughter, & Happily Ever After

Most of our close friends and family all know that Kyle and I met on “Match.com”. Some questions some of you may wonder and/or not know is who messaged who first? Instant chemistry? First Date? Etc? Well, it was Kyle who messaged me first and his open liner was “Chico State Woot Woot.” It was easy to reply to him since we immediately had something in common of going to Chico State University. Kyle and I began messaging back and forth on June 17th, 2017. He had just begun his vacation to Costa Rica, which, he than later was dubbed the name “Costa Rica Guy” whenever I spoke about him to my friends and family. After a week of snap chatting, facebooking, messaging on match back and forth, we had our first date on June 24th. Kyle was a gentlemen. After I told him we could meet up half way, he insisted that he drive to Yuba City and take me out on a date in my town. We ended up going to “The Happy Viking" and "Sutter Buttes Brewery” for our first date. I can honestly say, at least for me, there was instant chemistry between us. We spent the night talking, drinking (Kyle had to finish one of my drinks cause I started to get a little tipsy), dining, and when it was time to part, he gave me a hug and a kiss on the cheek. Since that first date and Kyle making our relationship “official” on July 30th, Kyle and I have shared a long distance relationship. We lived 97 miles apart, but dedicated our weekends in order to make this long distance relationship work. It had been a year and four months (as I wrote this story in December 2018) and out of that time, we had missed a total of 5 weekends together. 2 of them being when I went to Europe. It is true what they say, “Distance does make the heart grow fonder.” I am happy and very excited to share that as of December 15th, 2018, Kyle and I put our long distance relationship to bed and moved into a little apartment in Woodland, California.

I would have included this in the first story; however, I ran out of room and the story was too long. Go figure! So a lot of family and friends have asked us, why woodland? Why settle there? This was Kyle and I’s compromise since he works in Fairfield/Bay Area and I work in Yuba City. We both love our jobs and we both our homebodies who love our families. This allows us to both have an hour commute and to be a short distance away from our loved ones. We are adjusting to apartment life... again. For me, it feels like I am back in college at Chico State! But with that being said, I honestly love our little home we have created even if there is limited space.

Yes, You read that right. Back when we first started texting, we were asking each other the basics and getting to know each other and about our families. Here is an excerpt from one of our texting conversations: Maddy : So what is your last name Kyle? Kyle: How bad do you want to know your future last name? Maddy: Lol Oh Geeze To be completely honest I was being serious when I asked her that question as I had a feeling she was the one. She has many qualities that I had been looking for and she truely was my Disney princess. Little did she know a little over two years later my question would be coming true. I guess you could say the rest is history and they lived happily ever after. -Kyle

If there is one thing most people know about Kyle, it's that he tends to be a little more reserved and private. So needless to say, I am going to share something with all of you that no one else knows, but us. When Kyle and I first started dating, we created a "bucket list" together. This list consisted of experiences, places we would like to visit and things we would like to create together. Things like go to AT&T park, Disneyland, and build a firepit. This list consisted of 20 items and whenever Kyle and I would complete something on our "bucket list" we would cross it off. The last item on our "bucket list" was Engagement. So apparently when I was on my trip to Europe enjoying the travel bug, Kyle was bit by the "proposal" bug. He made the effort and drove to Yuba City one afternoon to ask my dad and my mom for my hand. He then asked his mom and his sister to help him pick out the ring. So as I got back to California on my birthday and both of our families enjoyed dinner at "The Dead Fish," I was the only one in the dark where everyone else knew the big secret. Two weeks later, on July 28th, 2018, Kyle asked me to marry him in San Francisco at Baker Beach. He pulled the ring out of his bag, made me wait there after pulling out the box and walked over to put his bag down, and THEN got down on one knee and said, "Madeline Stephens. You’re the love of my life and I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with you. Will you marry me?" It was the happiest moment of my life and will continue to be one of the happiest moments of my life.