Lee and Stephanie met on a dating app called Zoosk.

Stephanie's memory: Lee's profile kept appearing in her list of matches mid-March 2020, and Stephanie thought he was quite attractive, enjoyed reading his story, and saved his profile. At some point in the process, they both selected each other, and Lee was the first to reach out. For the record, she really wanted to contact him, but she's a bit old fashioned, and was holding out hope he would message soon.

Lee's memory: Lee was so taken back by Stephanie's beauty, intelligence, sense of humor, and their wide range of shared interests and music that the details of their match are fuzzy. He just knew he was captivated by what he saw and read that he wanted to know more about her.

On March 27, 2020, Lee and Stephanie started messaging through the Zoosk app, and after a few days took it offline to text directly. On a Sunday afternoon driving back from Missouri Military Academy, Lee called Stephanie and they talked during his entire drive from Mexico, MO to Lawrence, KS, and then some - it was almost a six hour phone conversation about everything you can imagine.

After a few weeks of texts and phone conversations, Lee asked Stephanie what she thought about meeting in person. Obviously, she agreed!

So, if you noticed the date of when Lee and Stephanie began texting and talking, you've realized that this was just as Covid-19 hit the U.S., and everything was just beginning to close down.

How in the world are we supposed to meet in person or go on a date when restaurants and entertainment venues were closing everywhere? Lee couldn't exhibit his date planning skills, and Stephanie had her strict "single mom first date rules" of driving herself to meet the gentleman in a very public place. What to do?

We didn't want to wait any longer, and really didn't know how long things would last with the pandemic. With a great deal of discussion, discernment of how to safely meet, and a little caution thrown to the wind, they decided Lee would drive to Stephanie's house in Olathe and she would cook dinner for them.

So, on Thursday, April 9, 2020, Stephanie prepared a meal of salmon, wild rice and steamed broccoli. She gave him two meal options, and he left it to her. Stephanie learned after that fact, that while he loves fishing, Lee doesn't eat a lot of fish. Her salmon somehow passed his selective tastebuds. She had no idea just how true the 'way to a man's heart is through his stomach' adage really held for Lee!

Nine days after their first date, on April 18, Lee invited Stephanie out for a motorcycle ride. He couldn't take her out anywhere, and it seemed like the perfect way to spend time together with "social distance". No better way than riding out on Kansas country highways in fresh air, alone and far away from others. Stephanie had never been on a motorcycle, but had spent most of her life wanting this experience.

Lee gave Stephanie his Motorcycle Passenger & Safety 101 spiel, and a pretty stern 'don't scratch the paint' reminder before he helped her on the back of "Girlfriend", his beautiful 2018 Harley-Davidson Street Glide. Which also happened to be a most gorgeous shade of green, which they would learn was both of their favorite color.

Time seemed to stand still as they rode the hills of Kansas, and before she knew it, they had covered 100 miles. When they stopped to take a break, there was a discussion of Stephanie's plans the next day. She was driving to Fayetteville, AR to deliver a laptop to her daughter Carey at college. Lee thought it was crazy that she would spend eight hours driving alone to Fay and back to deliver a computer. She needed company!

Now, this was the moment where these two would discover exactly how well Lee's idea generation and Stephanie's plan execution skills would pair together perfectly. Lee mentioned how effortlessly Stephanie had ridden with him for 100 miles on the bike already. At approximately 4:30pm, Lee says, "It's only 200 hundred miles to Fayetteville, bet you could manage that easily!"

Those of you who know Stephanie well, know that she is more of a planner, and a little less spontaneous. Lee changed that in an instant, and opened her life to unimaginable possibilities. She went home, called Carey to say she was going to be in town late that night with company, grabbed a few things, dressed as best as she could for the weather and a long ride. Lee grabbed what he needed overnight, picked her up in Olathe on the bike, and took her to Rawhide Harley-Davidson to get a few things to protect her better on the ride. And by 6:00pm, off they went for the rest of their first wind therapy adventure...

Stephanie's first ride on a motorcycle was 600 miles round trip.

The night temperatures dropped to a low of 45 degrees, and they arrived in Fayetteville around midnight, a bit cold, but Stephanie was hooked! Not only on the motorcycle, but Lee also.

Carey made them breakfast, and just as they headed to meet her, a cold drizzly rain that wasn't in the forecast started to fall. In what would become true L&S style, the sun emerged after breakfast for a dry and safe ride back to KC.

Little did either of them know, the adventures that lie ahead for them. The social isolation of a pandemic paved the way for Lee and Stephanie to get to know each other while riding almost 15,000 miles worth of dates on Girlfriend that first year, and included the Pig Trail in AR, a 2088 mile ride over five states in five days to the Tail of the Dragon in NC, and then Sturgis.

Three years later, countless adventures over prairies, hills, mountains, lakes, and sky brought Lee and Stephanie to the moment of their greatest adventure yet...their marriage.