The big question is, when did Amber and Vinny meet! They actually met years ago, when they were 13 years old at a ski race in Lake Placid. Amber still jokes about how Vinny would have to roll his helmet off of his head so he didn’t mess up his blow out hair cut from his helmet. Vinny called himself Vinny-The-Boss and raced for his own ski team that he named VTB Racing. It all started as a big joke to call himself that, but for some reason the name just stuck over the years.

Amber and Vinny stayed friends over all of those years through skiing, and then attended the same college in Vermont. Throughout college, they both raced on the Castleton Ski Team and remained good friends over the years, but never even thought about dating.

In 2017 Amber and Vinny reconnected at a Toby Kieth Concert in Brooklyn NY while Vinny was on a Summer Break from attending Grad School. While enjoying the concert, Vinny asked Amber on a Date for the following week! Amber can still remember being soooo nervous while getting ready before their first date, even though she had known him her whole life. She still can remember trying on almost every outfit in her closet and throwing them on the floor while she anxiously got ready for the date. Vinny was attending Grad School in Troy, NY at the time and Amber was living in Queens, so this date was his last shot to take her out before he went back to school for the year. Vinny drove all the way to Queens to take Amber to her favorite burger place in her neighborhood. Unfortunately, if the stress of a first date wasn’t enough to make them nervous, the restaurant didn’t have AC that day and it must have been the hottest day that summer! They still laugh about how they were both laughing trying not to notice that they were both dripping sweat on their very first date. Then while leaving the parking garage, Vinny’s Jeep broke down and valet didn’t know what to do! In true Vinny fashion, he swiftly walked to the tailgate and swung the back door open to grab an easily accessible tool box that was sitting in the trunk. Amber thought to herself, ‘Wow! He really knew what to do there!’ Little did she know that was going to be a normal occurrence! (LOL). But as Vinny drove away, Amber couldn’t help but think that this date felt so different than any before. Vinny had been in her life for so long, but something about him just felt perfect to her.

In August 2021 Vinny moved in with Amber in her apartment in Greenwood Lake! Overnight they were able to transform the home from ‘Hers’ to ‘Ours’!

In July 2022 Vinny officially started traveling the world with the US Ski Team! Although Amber and Vinny miss each other everyday, they are very supportive of each-others dreams, and are each-others biggest cheerleaders. Vinny makes sure to call or FaceTime home, every single day. And Amber is always Vinnys Number 1 Fan during his journey!

In 2015, Amber purchased a tapestry of a photo of the Colorado Mountains that she has hung on her wall ever since. She never knew exactly where the picture in the tapestry was taken but she always loved the look of the perfect blue sky with the fluffy white clouds above the mountain range. After Vinnys first trip to Colorado with the Ski Team, Vinny was relaxing at home when he began to recognize the mountains in the tapestry. “I know where this picture was taken!” Vinny proudly told Amber. Amber smiled at Vinny, even though she wasn’t sure if he was telling the truth or not. Vinny then pulled out his phone and showed her a photo from the past week of the exact same picture as the tapestry. “When you come to visit me in Colorado, we will have to take a picture there.” Amber was so excited to finally get to see the view of the mountains in real life, that she had been looking at for the past few years on her wall.

In 2016, Amber attended her first World Cup Ski Race in Killington VT. Amber took the flag to get signed by all of her favorite racers that had raced that weekend. Every year, when she would attend a World Cup Ski Race, Amber would bring her flag to add more and more signatures of athletes that raced on the US Ski Team and then would hang it on her apartment wall next to the tapestry. And when Vinny began to travel with the team himself, he would bring the flag and collect as many signatures for her as he could while he was away.

In November 2022 Vinny had to work in Colorado for Thanksgiving so he asked Amber to fly out to spend the holiday with him. Amber unfortunately had never skied out west before due to an unfortunate circumstance in early 2017 so she was over the moon to get the opportunity to finally ski out west. Vinny wanted everything to be perfect so his plan was to make sure Ambers very first time skiing out west was the day he proposed. He also wanted the sky to completely match the tapestry in our apartment so it would look just as perfect as the picture Amber always got to see. The morning of November 19th 2022, Vinny called Amber while he was at work (while she was visiting) and asked her to come on the hill and assist him with hill-crew. Amber immediately grabbed her things from the house and went straight to the mountain to help out. At the end of practice, Vinny asked if Amber could head to the top to help carry gates. As a coach, carrying gates was a normal occurrence, so Amber had no problem with helping out if she got to spend time with Vinny while she helped. When they arrived at the top no-one grabbed any gates. “Do you want me to carry these?” Amber asked. “No we are just counting them,” another coach replied. Amber thought it was so odd that they needed four coaches to count gates but before she had time to think about it, Vinny said “Hey! Thats the exact spot of our tapestry! We should take our picture!” And pointed to the view from the very same spot as the tapestry. Amber jumped up and started running over to the spot! This was completely normal behavior for the couple to take pictures at the top of a mountain so Amber was so excited to get a picture in this perfect spot, that she forgot all about the gates. Then Vinny pulled her American Flag out of his coat pocket! He told her that now that he is officially on the Ski Team, we should get someone to take a video of him signing the flag in the same spot as the tapestry. Amber thought this was an amazing idea so she turned around so he could use her back to lean on as he signed it for the video. When she turned back around Vinny pulled a ring box out of his pocket and dropped to one knee! Amber said yes of course…well…her exact words were, “Are You Serious!” On repeat because she was in complete shock. But she eventually calmed down and worked her way to say “Yes! Definitely!” Amber says it was an absolute dream proposal and Vinny is so happy to get to spend the rest of his life with his best friend. He said the proposal took about a year to plan and had many different factors and steps that came along with the planning! But he was happy that it was so perfect for her.