We met on the first day of 3rd grade in September 1999. Scott was the new kid in school and all of the girls thought he was so cute, including Kimberly. It wasn't long before we revealed our affection for each other outside the school office ("You're cute and nice") and started calling each other after school using the family landline. We spent our school days avoiding each other, as kids who "like like" each other are wont to do. During one rainy day recess, Kimberly's friends interrupted her game of Battleship to push her over towards Scott. Meanwhile, Scott's friends urged him towards Kimberly. Our friends had set up a mock wedding! Kimberly's thumb ring (this was 2000!) acted as the wedding ring and our friends proclaimed us husband and wife. Little did they know that 19 years later we would be getting married for real. We reconnected in October 2009 when Scott sent Kimberly a message on Skype. We talked that night for hours. A week later, Scott drove seven hours from NAU to UCLA to visit Kimberly and we've been together ever since.

We are the kind of couple who knew (almost) instantly that this was it. But because we were only 18 when we started dating, we wore promise rings until we were ready for the real thing way down the line. Way down the line ended up being December 28, 2016. At the time, Kimberly was living in Los Angeles and working in TV and Scott was living in Sacramento and running his first store. We had decided to spend Christmas in Santa Rosa and so it didn't seem out of the ordinary that Scott wanted to go spend the day in San Francisco. We hopped in the car and drove to The City where Scott wanted to take Kimberly to the Exploratorium, a place we had visited on several field trips together as kids. Kimberly suspected a proposal might be coming until it came time to eat dinner and Scott hadn't settled on a place. Kimberly let go of her suspicions because she thought surely he would have planned every little detail if today were the day. On our way back to Santa Rosa, Scott spontaneously decided to pull over on the North side of the Golden Gate Bridge. No one was around as we admired the sparkling lights of the San Francisco on our walk to the middle of the bridge. Almost as soon as we reached the middle, Scott reached into his jacket and pulled out a ring. We were both so overwhelmed that neither of us remembers exactly what was said. We took some photos of our newly engaged selves with the cold wind blowing in our faces and hurried off the bridge, excited to tell the world that it's finally happening!