It was a couple weeks before Nick was coming home to visit his family in New York from California and our mutual friend, Nate, showed me a picture of him and I immediately was interested. We started talking and before we knew it he was in New York and we were spending every minute together. He was home only for a week but that's all it took for us to realize that there was something strong between us.

Although we were living across the country from each other we continued to talk and build a strong foundation. I went to visit him in California in November where we talked about moving forward in our relationship. Some might think that it wasn't an ideal time to start something with him leaving for 7 months but we knew we were meant to be together and we would one day get married. We had a strong foundation and had already overcome the distance so we could tackle anything else that came at us. The next couple months consisted of traveling back and forth between New York and California when we could before he was to deploy. It was a long 7 months but we made it through and looking back now it was all worth it for where we are now. In January I (Tirzah) moved to California where the next chapter of our life began.

It was the start of the pandemic in California but that wouldn't stop Nick from getting down on one knee. It was on March 22, 2020 when Nick and I climbed Mount Kwaay Paay. One of the mountains that overlook the city and ocean on one side and mountains on the other. He told me to look off into the distance so he could get a picture. It was then that he went down on one knee and asked me to marry him. It went a little more like this "Will you marry me please? Im sitting on a bug hill and they're crawling on me so I'm going to stand now." I said yes just as we both started to get attacked by the bugs home he had just kneeled on.

As many of you know Nick and I got married shortly after the proposal in a very non traditional way due to COVID reaching San Diego and most our family and friends being across the country. We wanted to save our vows and do a full ceremony with our loved ones surrounding us. We are so excited to share this special day with you!