I met Chris for the first time back when I was an intern at Raytheon in September of 2019. Very few words were exchanged during my time at Raytheon, almost as though we were strangers. Our story begins in May of 2021 where he decided to squat in my work area and we struck a real conversation sharing our hobbies, interests, and our families. This was truly the beginning of everything. We found every reason or activity to spend our Saturdays together even after seen each other five times a week at work, but we didn't call it a date.


From that day forward, I knew that I wanted to see, do, learn, breathe, love, and do anything and everything with Chris. He showed me love and compassion. I would say our worlds collided serendipitously; and I'd go as far as to say, he is my favorite HR violation.

"I proposed to Natalie in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic on our two-year anniversary. I wanted to do it one day earlier, but getting Natalie to the place I had in mind proved far more difficult than anticipated. We had dressed up for the Italian restaurant at the resort and even though we didn't enjoy the food as much as we'd hoped, we always found room in our stomachs to go to the buffet. We paid a visit to our favorite bartender Jerry and after a while, I took Natalie, myself, and a ring box that regrettably still had a ring in it back to our room. She quickly changed into some pajamas and even though I convinced her to take a "walk" with me, it was far too humid for her to care when we made it to a small bridge, and I showed her the box for the first time. I guess I'll have to try again tomorrow....

Tomorrow (July 10, 2023) came, and it was our first big excursion day. We were out all day ziplining, feeding (and getting peed on) by monkeys, and driving dune buggies. Surely, we'd both be too tired for any kind of proposal tonight. We dressed up (again), went to the buffet after dinner (again), and visited our favorite bartender Jerry (AGAIN). This time, I didn't let her change into pjs when we got back to the room, and we immediately walked over to the bridge I had envisioned. I took her there and acted awkwardly for a few minutes before finally gathering the courage to get down on one knee and asker her the all-important question: "Natalie Quynh-Huong Pham, will you marry me?" I was so nervous I totally butchered the pronunciation of her middle name, thankfully for me, she still said yes. I went to put the ring on her finger to celebrate and voila! It didn't fit. I mean it was close ... kind of. I shamefully put the ring back in the box and we went BACK to our favorite bartender for some celebratory champagne. Jerry always greeted us with a "Hello my Friends!" and an "Of Course!" when we asked him if he could fill our water bottles with Champagne. We spent the rest of the trip drinking celebratory wine and we lived happily ever after.

Until the trip home which is another story in and of itself."