It a was a dark and stormy night..

Just kidding! It was a hot and sunny day at the Eastern Missouri Police Academy. Police officers, former recruits, crises counselors and advocates were all gathered to help aid in training the upcoming graduating class of 2021.

Let set the scene! Two radios, two cars, two ambitious recruits, and two complete strangers.

Who knew how two strangers would end up married by the strangest of situations!

Invited back by their academy as respective alumni to aid in the training of the next years graduating class. This was a long day set out for the recruits, just as our strangers had completed before them.

The instructor stood front and center with our strangers; While the recruits were in a separate room learning about the rules of today's exercise. Both wanting to work completely solo scenarios and not wanting to impede on another instructor or volunteer.

The instructor gave respective roles to each volunteer; however, our strangers got paired together!

It was an odd count of scenarios for the recruits, so our two strangers were put on a two-man mission of running traffic scenarios. With use of the academy practical patrol vehicle and a personal vehicle, between running a stop sign, to making an official arrest on a subject with sound reasoning and logic in their actions to do so.

Faulty channels with communication

Sitting in the practice patrol car together while waiting on our recruits to show up, he turns asks her for her phone number. In curiosity, She asks "why? we have radios that were our surefire way of communication." In that split moment of a question, Our radio pages with an employee from the nearby Macy's requesting a manager on duty!

After exchanging phone numbers, we became a brilliant team to mentor the students. We bounced off each other's ideas and so forth, We cracked jokes off like we'd been friends for years. The connection between us turned into a spark!

The two starting hanging out sporadically, spontaneous whenever life wasn't in the way. Started with social group events at a multitude of places: arcades, the lake that everyone could rent kayaks at, and even going out for a simple lunch.

Slowly, surely, the hangouts started trickling into just the two of them. All of our lives some time after got busy, we started to match our schedules to see each other, started visiting the other at each other's workplaces to drop off lunches. we started going out for more one on one lunch dates. Until one day, we both had an epiphany it wasn't platonic anymore!

We approached the holiday season, along with the high stress with some familial coordination to celebrate. He called me a few days before. I knew something was up but it was on a day that everything in the universe lined up just for him to call me on a day where I didn't have family holiday plans. No Friendsgiving or early Friendsmas. nothing! He called me to: first, invite me over for dinner on thanksgiving weekend. Second, to hypothetically ask if in another universe that we weren't just friends!

Now, several months ago, we had both gotten out of long -term relationships. both of which we were unhappy in. It happens to everyone. We only knew that hurt people hurt people. But most importantly we learned from them. We worked on bettering our communication, learned each other's boundaries. Dealing with the Covid pandemic, creating healthy environments for one another and we thrived!

We planned to move in together after having spent approximately two Christmases together. As Tim would like to say, "Don't propose until you've spent at least two Christmases with a girl" Tim and I found better jobs that became our blessings as we worked our way up to saving for an apartment in St. Ann, MO.

Hard work pays off! We were handed the keys to our first apartment in 2022. We lived in the not-so-quiet city of St. Ann, MO. We were still in the middle of the Covid Pandemic. Living there for the first year together was strange, it never actually felt like it was home. The second year, we tried to make it feel more like home, we decorated but it wasn't anything permanent. We decided to start house hunting in the spring of 2024

Summer of '24

After six long months of searching for the right fit for us.

We found a home in Eureka, MO and we had accidentally gotten a four new legged, furry friend. The same week were moving into our new home, we rescued Bruce! He was a stray in St. Ann. Since then, he has become a part of our little family.

The air was crisp, the sun had hit high at noon. On the Elevator ride up to the public roof top access of the Peabody hotel. Tim kept looking at me the entire way up, we were just going to see the ducks that lived up there! This man didn't have a fear of heights that couldn't have possibly developed overnight! Plus we were just going to take some really nice photos of Memphis, Tennessee from the rooftop

Cameras! Lights! Action! The camera was now set for a cute photo of us travelling for our 3rd year anniversary! What I didn't know... He was recording the magical moment our lives were going change. I was waiting for the flash as he got down on one knee.

"Will you marry me?"