cheers to forever!

We were both starting flight school in Florida where we were matched up for the initial part of training at the same airport. We found ourselves completing our first solo flights together and began chatting while we were waiting to fly. We just clicked with each other and both thought to ourselves there was something special about the other. Looking back, I think we were right!

One of the first locations that Yana and I went to when she initially moved to Mississippi, was a beautiful dam. We could not believe a place like this existed in the middle of nowhere. So I decided to plan a surprise picnic for her at the first fishing spot we found at the dam, a secluded area that took about 200 meters of walking off the road to get to. Our kind friends helped set up a magical evening by laying down decorations and a picnic on the water. In the trees my friends Matt and Grant hid, waiting to take pictures of the proposal. Unfortunately, a road to the park was closed off, so we had to walk about a mile just to get to the location. All this time, I was carrying flowers in one hand and a cooler in the other, trying not to give away the surprise. Once we get to the picnic, with the beautiful scenery in the background, I got down one knee and asked Yana to spend the rest of her life with me. Yana said afterward that if my nervous demeanor, insistence that we arrive at a specific time, and the random flowers I was carrying on our way to the picnic spot hadn't already given it away, the weird people rustling around the bushes trying to act sneaky (thanks Grant and Matt) may have given her a hint of what was to come!