Many may not know the true story of how we happened upon each other.

"I thought you guys met through a mutual friend?"

"I thought you guys met at a bar?"

"I thought you guys met at school?"

NOPE,

Our love story begins in 2 separate towns. Nathan was living alone in plant city working for Bastech. Originally he came down to Florida to live with cousin Josh in Clermont, but when he got this job he moved west.

At the same time Candace had moved back home to live with her dad in Ft. Myers after Graduating with her Bachelors degree from the University of Florida the St. Pete campus. She worked as a Registered Behavior Technician working with children on the Autism Spectrum.

As the story goes, Candace was visiting a friend in Tampa. They went for a journey northwards to GA to go camping for the friend's birthday. Before the excursion began the friend had convinced Candace to download Tinder (yes the dating app) to fiddle with on the ride. Meanwhile, they say that Nathan was scrolling through tinder just as the two friends crossed his dating radius. Candace had looked through Nathan's cryptic bio of: "if we can't make fun of each other, then I don't want it." His profile pictures were presumably old and very few for Candace to properly examine. However, she swiped right. The night was long on that journey to the mountains. There had been a terrible accident on the highway leaving our companions stranded awaiting clearance to move forward. As the night progressed a twist of fate as Candace and Nathan matched! It was a glorious feeling that they were matched. "Hey you dropped something," Nathan proclaimed. Candace questioned him "what?" Nathan came up with "your standards," at this Candace retorted "I must have if I am talking to you." From that day on they had banter to last a life time.

Nathan and Candace started seeing each other commuting back and forth each weekend. It had been mere weeks when Nathan asked Candace to go steady. It had taken Candace mere weeks to say "I love you," as she could not contain her love she had to wake him up in the dead of night to tell him. Nate lovingly told her to go back to bed, but the next faithful day he too pronounced his love to her.

Since it had been mere months since they started dating they wanted to conceal their love from naysayers. They had come up with a code "nachos," was the code for "I love you." Therefore, when visiting both Nate and Candace's families they would speak of nachos, not leading anyone to know.

Once their love was secured Candace moved in with Nate after mere months. They falsely lead family to think that Candace was living with a friend from college instead of Nate. Candace and Nathan moved apartment to apartment until the day they were able to buy their home. As the house purchase was being processed Nathan was plotting to pop the question to Candace. He conjured up all of her closest friends to scheme how he should do so. When it came time to go on the Canadian trip to Nate's friend's wedding the trip was not as it seemed. Ian hit the day their flight was supposed to take off, the makeup flight had gotten so delayed that the pair missed the wedding, and as they stayed with company they contracted COVID. The trip had its moments of joy, but was overall a failure. Until they day before their flight home Nathan lead Candace believe they were going for a simple Nature hike with friends. Little did she know that would be the day her hand would forever hold a ring. Nathan surprised her on the edge of the water taking a knee as she turned around. Flabbergasted Candace was speechless. All she could do was nod excitedly.

To this day they live happily ever after with their 3 dogs. If they can find love during COVID on an online dating app they can make it through anything together.

To be continued...