Michael and I both attended North Carolina State University for college - Go Pack! - which is how this story begins. While attending NC State, Michael worked at a local seafood restaurant in Raleigh where a couple of our mutual friends also worked. (Turns out I would work there a couple years later after Michael left Raleigh and went back home to pursue his new career). We would all occasionally go downtown or party together, but with Michael's work schedule, he was never home very often, so we would see each other maybe a couple of times a year. Flash forward to 2018, Michael invited our friend Nikki (shout out to you for introducing us) and I to the river for Memorial Day to spend the day on the boat. This is the first time I had ever been to the river and little did I know it would not be my last. Nikki and I left the same day to go back to Wilmington without realizing we took Michael's wallet with us (oops), so he came to get it and ended up staying in Wilmington. We all went to dinner and went downtown and it was a great time! Michael had to go back to work right after Memorial Day weekend, but we texted every day and he eventually asked me out to dinner once his tour was over. We went on our first date on June 22nd, 2018 to the 42nd Street Oyster Bar in Raleigh followed by going downtown with some of my friends. He then proceeded to invite me down to the river for July 4th, where I ended up spending the WHOLE week with him. We went on the boat one day, the beach one day, to Busch Gardens one day.. every day was something new and exciting. And on August 1st, 2018, Michael asked me to be his girlfriend and the rest is history.
Michael was scheduled to take firefighting classes in order to update his SeaBook which would be held in Florida, so we decided to make a little vacation out of it. Our plan was to drive down to Florida on the Friday before his classes started that following Monday so we could visit with his Papa Ed and "go out on the boat," or so that was what I was told. We stayed in a hotel in Daytona, Florida on Friday night. We woke up early and went to breakfast where Michael surprised me and said we were going to spend the day at Disney and we would be seeing his Papa Ed on Sunday. I had never been to Disney before so I happy cried over my breakfast!! While at Disney, we decided to take a picture that would announce that we were expecting little Easton in September 2019. Surprise to our friends and family!! But I didn't know that I would also be getting a surprise right after. We were standing in line to get our picture taken in front of Cinderella's Castle when Michael started telling me how much he loved me and how excited he was for our family to start, which I thought was so sweet, but still had no idea what was about to happen. We get posed in front of the castle when Michael steps away from me and starts to reach into his pocket and get down on one knee. I honestly could not believe it.. I had a hunch he would be proposing to me "on the boat with Papa Ed" but I guess the excitement of being at Disney erased any thought from my mind that would he would propose to me there. I couldn't say "YES" fast enough. I would say yes a million times over, for the rest of my life.