As I like to tell everyone Lee and I first met when I was 12 and he was 17. This, however is just the preface. As many people have commented it is like a Hallmark movie, just throw in a pandemic.

In 2008 I went to look at Christmas trees with my parents. We were lucky enough to have Lee as the one helping us that night. I thought he was cute (there are evidential texts that still live on my old envy2). However, the one Lee really left an impression on that night was my dad. He was so impressed by Lee and his hard work that he told him if he ever needed a job to come see him.

Fast forward 12 years, and Lee working with my dad for 9 years. This is when the pandemic hit. I had graduated from Alabama and started nursing school in Pittsburgh. I was supposed to work at the hospital that summer, but did not want to risk getting my parents sick. My dad then suggested I come to work for him for the summer. My crush on Lee was back immediately; it didn’t hurt that his kindness and sense of humor is something you pick up on instantly or that he has the kind of smile that makes you smile. Slowly but surely, we started talking more and more with some inside jokes about coffee, and Lee and I magically both finishing our work at the same time every day and walking out together. Lee was also, of course, the person I always would ask questions when I had them about anything work-wise. I had hoped something would happen, but no one made a move and the school year started back up. So instead of working at the office I started bringing all of my schoolwork to the office. Lee would come ask me questions or look at what I was working on, he even brought me some of my favorite candies. Lee and I both tried asking each other to meet for drinks in ways that went completely over the other’s head. Eventually, Lee was not so subtly saying how he would love to walk his dogs but couldn’t without a second person. All I could muster was, “I’ll take the small one!” That is how our first date walking the lake at North Park came about. The rest is history!

There are so many other amazing parts to our story, but that would take too many words and too many pages and just would not do it justice. We are excited to have you be a part of the beginning of a whole new chapter of our story on 9-9-2023!