We sat feet away from each other in our Russian literature class for months, neither of us saying a word in the others direction. Her first thoughts of him: "He's cute, but seems very serious. I wanted to get to know him, but it's awfully hard to catch someone's eye when they're sleeping through class". According to him, his first thoughts of me were: "Damn, that lady is fine." Classy.

The first time we spoke was outside of our professor's office, waiting to meet with him. Both of us being language majors, we began talking about the languages we speak and what we wanted to do in the future with our language skills. It was just a very short 5 minute conversation, but it was enough to make me want to talk to him again. I quickly went down to my office and began looking for him on Facebook, found him, and added him. He messaged me within a few minutes of sending him a friend request. From then on we talked almost everyday. We talked about the Air Force, travelling, hobbies and more...

We both had very busy schedules the semester we met. On top of being a full time student, Joey was also a flight commander within AFROTC and I was a full time graduate student and part-time instructor. Trying to get our schedules to mesh was extremely difficult at first, but we managed to squeeze in a lunch date one day after class. I remember Joey seemed very nonchalant about everything in class that day, all he said to me after class was "So, do you want me to pick you up?". And he did, after getting lost multiple times.

We had our first date at Cheddar's. It was a 3 hour lunch full of laughter and fun. It all went well until Joey dropped me off at my apartment. Not being experienced in the dating game I wasn't sure what to do, so I just said "Thanks! It was fun!" and pretty much ran out of the car to my door because I was so nervous. As soon as I shut my door I thought to myself, "Well good job Melissa, you screwed that up". To my surprise Joey texted me a few minutes later and asked to see me again. From then on we have been inseparable...

After we had been dating for only a few weeks Joey asked me to join him on a ski trip in two months. Now normally I don't accept vacation invitations from strangers, but Joey's pretty cute, so I made an exception.

It was a long and fun drive to Taos, New Mexico. And along the way we stopped at Canon AFB. It was the first time I'd ever been on an Air Force Base, and I was in awe of the BX. A place where you can buy clothes, videogames, makeup and guns all in one place! What's not to love?! We spent a few hours exploring, bought supplies for the trip and got back on the road to Taos.

This was my first ski trip, I was so excited and nervous. Joey offered to help me learn to ski the first day. Great boyfriend, terrible ski instructor. I fell so many times I lost count. One of my legs was a completely covered in bruises, I looked like I had been severely beat up. The next day was much better, I hired a professional ski instructor. By the end of the day I went from the Bambi slope to skiing part of a blue.

It was an amazing start to our winter vacation. I had so much fun that I even bought my own pair of skis (which I subsequently snapped in half a couple of weeks later at Bogus Basin Ski Resort... Not my fault by the way, manufacturing error!).

We got engaged on November 20th, 2016, on Joey's birthday! We had a pretty relaxing day, we had gone out the night before and spent time with friends. The day started with a big home cooked breakfast and we spent the morning watching movies and just hanging out on the couch. Later in the afternoon we went to the grocery store and Joey was insistant on getting ice cream and champagne, but everything in rose gold or pink. (I had actually seen the ring box in his pocket the night before, so I knew something was up!)

When we got home from the grocery store we took the dogs out for a walk, something we don't do nearly as often as we should. It was probably one of the last nice nights before winter set in and the dogs were so excited to get out. We took them to their favorite park, Raider loves going down the slide! We walked around the park and the neighborhood for a bit and then Joey decided we should sit and relax under a tree with the dogs for awhile.

We talked and relaxed and when we decided to leave Joey asked me to take Ezio's leash, acting like his hip was hurting or needing to pop (nothing out of the ordinary). And then he got on one knee, took my hand and asked me to marry him. Obviously I said yes!

The ring he got me is a beautiful rose gold ring that he got in Almaty, Kazakhstan while he was studying abroad this last summer. It's absolutely perfect.

We then went home to celebrate, popped open the Rose champagne and ate strawberry ice cream. Now it made sense that he insisted on certain colors! We spent the next several hours celebrating and talking to friends and family! So I think Joey had a good birthday, he got a fiancée out of it!