The couple were high school sweethearts, with Abel meeting Annie with barely any time to grab her before college. Annie arrived from China senior year for the very last semester before graduation and narrowly chose Abe’s school Walnut High over Diamond Bar, simply because she didn’t like their colors.

Annie was a top violinist, and Abel the leader of the Walnut trumpet section. The director made the students greet Annie, with her remembering Abel by confusing his name with “apple” – “who would name their kid Apple anyways?” she had been thinking.

From that happy mistake, Annie reached out to Abel for help, and he struck a sneaky bargain – Abel began teaching Annie local American English, and convinced Annie to teach Chinese study lessons in the park. It was all part of the Abel plan.

They quickly became thick as thieves and realized they had never met someone like each other, complementing and growing one another in every way, breaking culture and language barriers, connecting over everything from the moon and back, and chatting until 1am about the world.

Not one to lose his chance, especially before the other guys could steal her away, Abel quickly made his move and asked Annie to senior prom in front of everyone. For him, there was no one that could match Annie’s personality, curiosity, and intellect, and she just dropped out of nowhere from across the world. For Annie, she was too shocked to talk through the pizza she was chewing so there was no chance to say no! But Abel also happened to be very popular back in school so that might have helped a bit too, we’ll never know.

Shortly after prom, Abel confessed to Annie on May 20th, 2016. Crafty as ever, it turned out that 5/20 sounds like a very rare date of “I love you” in Chinese.

Abel was thrown head-first into Chinese culture after that, messily learning chopsticks at Annie’s house with her mom’s Chinese dishes, gaining weight like no other, and teaching himself Chinese with tons of phone apps. Annie’s family loved Abel for being honest, hardworking, and always helping them out. Likewise, Abel’s family loved Annie’s family. Every holiday, birthday, and celebration since meeting has been spent together with the two families. Annie’s family transition from China to America was way easier than most people because we all helped each other, all the time. The two families have an amazing relationship with one another.

Abel also got a chance to visit China in 2018 and explore all over the country and meet her family, and experience being a foreign white celebrity in the countryside towns that don’t get travelers. The food was so good that Abel brought back 11 pounds from just the 5-week trip. Can’t argue with $2 feasts!

After coming back to America, Annie had to leave again to study in Europe for 1 college semester. Abel didn’t last very long, and he grabbed his buddy and flew over to see Annie for a week in Europe during Thanksgiving. They had a blast and explored all over Vienna, Germany, Czechia, and Hungary.

In 2022 when the world was still trapped from the pandemic and nothing was certain, Abel made his next big move and proposed to Annie in Los Angeles on a starry night, and she said yes to one darn lucky guy.

Abel and Annie grew up and faced the world together as best friends and each other’s teacher, advisor, and sounding board for these last 8 years and counting. They figured out how to communicate their problems, trust one another, get through the hardest of times, and dedicate themselves to making things work no matter what.

The sky’s the limit with more adventures together in life coming!