EJ and Amanda first met back in May of 2020 in the thick of COVID-19. Although they both attended Miami University and had several mutual friends, they had never met, let alone know about each other until their moms worked together at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. Their mothers would always joke about how they thought Amanda and EJ would be perfect together and had shared their phone numbers with the other years prior.

They had tried to meet casually on a few occasions, but for whatever reason, fate was keeping them apart. During the pandemic, Amanda’s mom had urged her to reach out to EJ. She had a couple months worth of time on her hands as she was laid off from 2 jobs due to COVID and was enthusiastically waiting for her career in clinical research to kickoff— perfect time to ACTUALLY ensure they meet.

They got to texting and finally decided that was going well enough to plan a first date as bars and restaurants were opening back up. Their first date was supposed to be dinner, so, overwhelmingly hungry from finally getting over first date jitters, they sat at the dinner table talking while they anxiously awaited service. Well, 4 hours later they left their “dinner date” with their bellies still empty, but hearts fuller than they had been in a long time.

They knew from that first date that they were meant to have each other in the other’s life in some capacity from that point forward. After that, one trip to the lake led to another and as they say, “the rest was history”.