Matthew and I met while working at a local restaurant, Mike's Place.
He was a chef, and I was a server. After a couple of years working there,
we remained acquaintances. One day I overheard him talking about how he was a
martial arts instructor in an after-school program. I had always loved kids and thought
it wassuper awesome that he chose to teach kids how to defend themselves. After I
pointed out to him that I thought he was super awesome, he replied, "That's just one of
my manyawesome qualities, wanna get married?" and jokingly, I said yes. Later on, 

Matthew sent me a facebook message and asked if he could text or call me. 
This was on November fifth, 2014.

Matthew took me on our first date. Taking the traditional route, he came
to my parents home to pick me up, wielding a bouquet of flowers.
This shocked me. Never had I ever had a man come meet my parents,
state his intentions of the night, with flowers, in a blazer. He took me to Umami for some
sushi and sake wherein I ate all of my food very quickly and he barely ate. Can
you tell we were nervous? Haha! Following dinner, we went back to his house where he
apologized profusely for bringing me there because he didn't want to seem like 'that guy'.
I can assure you he was not anything like 'that guy'. We watched Pan's Labyrinth and sat
about five feet apart, hands close but not even touching! After the film, he took me home.
When we got out of his car, we stood and looked at the stars for a few moments...one of my
favorite things in the world to do. And then we saw our first shooting star together.
I awkwardly kissed him on the cheek insinuating I wanted a second date and then he went
home!
This was on November twenty-eighth, 2014.

We decided to 'go steady' pretty quickly after we learned more and
more about one another. This happened at my parents house, as well (: 
This was on December eleventh, 2014.
 

The first time we went to Missouri to visit and get tattoos, I met his entire family.
Even got to go to his sister Megan's baby shower, which was quite intimidating since
I'm the older sister to my one brother and he is the youngest of SEVEN! One night after
hanging out with his friends and my new friends, we were driving around different
backroadshe knew as a kid and he looked at me and said, "So...we're in love, right?"
and we laughed and realized it was true. We were in love. Like, love love. For real. 
This was March twenty-fifth, 2015.

Skip forward several months to a morning neither of us worked. Our days off usually
consisted of doing absolutely nothing but vegging out and watching Netflix.
On this particular day, I sat in bed for awhile checking out social media and whatnot
and finally Matthew told me I needed to get out of bed and get ready. I immediately
got slightly frustrated because I didn't want to do a thing that day, but I got up and went
into the bathroom. When I came back out to grab something, Matthew asked me if I knew
what day it was. I said, "Well...no...what day is it? Aside from November 5th and it
being V for Vendetta day...." He asked me if I remembered what he asked me
a year ago. Of course I didn't know. He showed me the facebook messages of
us talking for the first time the year prior....I still didn't know. I'm pretty
oblivious if you can't tell by this point. Finally he said, "I asked you to marry
me last year, remember?" and that's when he got on one knee and
I fell to my own and started crying. He asked, I said yes. 
This was November fifth, 2015.

You are my greatest adventure and my happy ending.