Robert and I met through a good friend Brittany Brakka! Brittany and I worked together at Sprouts and became friends. After a few months of being friends Brittany invited me over to her home and that's where she introduced me to Robert. The three of us went to dinner and spent a little time together.

After a while Robert and I realized that we enjoyed spending time together. He was in no way interested in dating me due to our age difference and I referred to him jokingly as 27.

Even though we knew a relationship wasn't in the cards for us, we still continued to hang out and soon Robert started introducing me to pop culture in the form of movies.

Friday nights became our stupid movie night and I learned the ridiculousness of movies like, Idiocracy, Lets Go to Prison, Walk Hard, Kung Pao, and my personal favorite, Movie 43...just to name a few.

Our Fridays eventually turned into spending a few nights a week together and it wasn't long before I realized I was in this for the long haul.

Robert and I were together every Tuesday and Friday and he met my kids after we had been "hanging out" for about 9 months or so. My kids would always ask me and Robert if we were boyfriend and girlfriend, but the answer was no...just friends.

I swear Robert moved at a snails pace...but finally after a little over a year, he finally ventured out of his comfort zone and invited me, very begrudgingly to a friends wedding. I think he figured out by then that even though we may have 20 years between us, we were a pretty good match.

He knew he loved me and I definitely loved him too. I think about a year and a half of being together on the regular, he finally gave me the title of girlfriend.

It would still be almost another year before he finally came clean to his mother that he had someone in his life. And Hanukkah of 2019 I finally met his mother, sister and brother in law...They were great, and I instantly felt very comfortable with them.

Then in 2020 Covid reared its ugly head and Robert was spending at least three nights a week or more at my home in Santa Paula due to his new schedule of "work from home". just like everyone else we did have to put a few things off like a planned trip overseas, a minor inconvenience.

Robert and I had decided early into our relationship that marriage, and definitely kids were not something he and I were going to explore together, but we knew we were with our person. So In November of 2021, Robert moved out of his condo and into my house in Santa Paula with me and my kids. You know it had to be love when he left his 7 minute commute and a cute town of Camarillo for a 45 minute commute an a town that has one very poorly stocked grocery store!

As the doom and gloom of Covid started to lift, we decided to take our long awaited trip! On April 20, 2022 we hopped on a plane in business class non the less thanks to the tutelage of how to fly with points (thank you Adam!) and headed to Paris! One of many stops of our 17 day tour of Europe!

We arrived in Paris at 730 am the morning of the 21st. It was off to a rocky start because we were both pissy and I thought we were going to grab and uber from the airport and head to the city, but Robert who had done the whole Paris thing before knew there was this wonderful cheap thing called public transportation. Something that a girl who had never traveled much out of her small hometown was used to. The train took us, ok really Robert, a few minutes to figure out, but soon we were on our way to the city!

After what seemed to be a long train ride , we made our way to our hotel to check in...mind you I was running on empty as our flight had left LAX at 7am the 20th of April, I had no sleep and without sleep I'm a grumpy girl! We got to our cute little boutique hotel and were told we couldn't check in until 3pm. OMG I was tired and I wanted sleep! I was in the same clothes I had been in for hours, comfy clothes for the flight no makeup and uncombed hair. I looked like death warmed over and felt about the same, but now I had to roam the city of Pairs looking rough and feeling the same. We only had a few day here so off we went to the Eiffel Tower. It's huge, and commercial and so, so , so crowded! I had seen and mentioned over the years pics of people getting engaged at the tower and said to Robert as we walked passed the lines of people trying to go to the top, and the Eiffel tower statue peddlers..."who thinks this is romantic? Why would anyone proposed here!" He agreed and we walked on grabbed a water at a kiosk and a ticket to ride a taxi boat on the Seine River. That was the best place I could think of to sit and relax and try to catch a second wind.

After a what seemed like a few hours, we finally exited at the Louve. We took a few pictures of the outside and headed toward the lock bridge. We had brought a lock and were going to break the law by adding our lock to the bridge and throw the key into the Seine. After finding a spot to hang it and waiting for the wanna be instagram influencers to finish modeling and taking photos in front of the spot we chose, we finally made our way to hang our lock. As I fumbled and tried to figure out how to lock the lock, Robert had gotten down on one knee with a little black box in one hand. He asked me to take a new adventure with him and be his wife. Of course I said yes ... eventually.

And here we are today planning a wedding ....our new adventure is about to begin