Kelli - Bob Miller Middle School, I remember Tyler being the annoying guy who sat next to me in Mrs. Ryland's 6th grade reading class who never really did his work but would talk about baseball and Mrs. Ryland loved him. We still became friends though because we always sat next to each other in every class we had together since we are both at the end of the alphabet. We stayed friends for a while after going to different high schools but drifted off. It wasn't until he randomly texted me in early 2013 that our relationship began. He was the same funny, smart-aleck that I met in middle school, but much taller and show-offy. Tyler - The first memory I have of Kelli is in 7th grade. It was Mr. Yarbrough's class. She asked me what I got for my birthday and I told her that my family doesn't do presents for birthdays. We just get to choose dinner. The next day at school, Kelli told me everyone deserves a birthday present and gave me a Snickers. It was so sweet that I didn't even tell her that I don't really like Snickers.

After graduating from our respective high schools in 2014, Tyler attended Hawaii Pacific University in Honolulu, HI to pursue baseball and Kelli attended Cal Poly San Luis Obispo to study Architecture. Over the course of our 5 years in college, we spent 1,397 days apart, separated by 3-16 time zones with trips to Honolulu, Vegas, SF, SoCal and SLO in between. We had no clue what we were getting into with long distance, and by no means was it easy but in 2019 we could say we made it through. Kelli got a job in San Diego and thankfully, Tyler agreed to move. We now live in San Diego thankful we no longer live an ocean apart.

Tyler - First of all, I wanted it to be a complete surprise. I had planned out that I would ask her during our anniversary, but COVID ruined that. I also wanted to ask in San Diego, at the overlook at Civita Park, but we were in Las Vegas during COVID. This meant having to wait. I got the ring while in Vegas and was able to keep it in my bag without her knowing. When we come back to San Diego, I can't find a chord I needed for work so she starts going through all my stuff looking for it. She pulls out the engagement ring box and my heart just drops. She goes what is this. I'm like uhhhh and then she goes oh it's your watch. phew. That was a close one. So I ask her to go up to the Civita lookout for sunrise. We get up there a little early and I'm waiting for the sun to come up to ask. She starts talking about how she's hungry and if I was ready to go back. So I have to casually convince her to stay for the sunrise. We watched all the bunnies out and about waiting and then finally asked her. Pretty sure she had no idea it was coming and she said yes, so overall was a success. Kelli - To say I was surprised is an understatement. How he could hide buying a ring and planning a proposal during Covid while we spent nearly every hour together is concerning. I thought we were just going for a nice walk to a new lookout point in our neighborhood, a little early, but I was the one that said it would be better for sunrise not sunset. Its honestly all a blur and the ring was 2 sizes too big but we celebrated with waffles.