Shawn and I met the old-fashioned way - online. We connected on the app because Shawn had his location set to the Denver area. Within moments of our first FaceTime chat he confessed to not only NOT living in Colorado, but he wasn't even living in the States! He told me he was deployed to Japan and I said, "Okay." I think my quick acceptance confused him at first, but once I explained why I was so familiar with the lifestyle of a military pilot, his curiosity was peaked. Since Shawn was living on the other side of the world, we had to wait a little while to meet in person. It ended up working out that we scheduled our first date on the same day Shawn had his interview with United Airlines. Talk about a risky bet. He got the job and the girl all in one day! After that, things moved quickly. I visited Shawn in North Carolina, and a few weeks later I was accompanying him on the road trip back home. But first, Shawn had to take the incredibly bitter-sweet steps of separating from Active Duty, flying his fini flight with the Rockets, and saying goodbye to the Strike Eagle. Here's a brief recap of the series of events that followed next: 1. Shawn moved in with me and spent terminal leave mountain biking in the pitch black on 36 hours of no food or sleep #fun? 2. Shawn learned to fly the 737 3. We got a puppy! 4. We bought a house! 5. We used those awesome airline perks to fly to Europe 6. We moved out of my tiny townhome, put all our stuff in storage, and drove down to someplace warm, where the beer flows like wine, and beautiful people instinctively flock like the salmon of Capistrano. I'm talking about a little place called San Antonio 7. Shawn grew an epic mustache 8. We survived the Texas heat by floating the river and finding any puddle for Moose to "swim" in. (He wears a life jacket - see the Gallery tab for proof) 9. Shawn shaved off said epic mustache 10. We closed on our house, moved home, got engaged, I started a new job, and now I'm making this website