I am so happy to have found Ryan.  I think we have been circling each other our whole lives. I knew he was out there!  I just kept kissing the wrong frogs!  I found myself pregnant with my daughter Kylie at the age of 24.  While I felt that I was mature and responsible enough to have a child at 24, I didn't ever think that this life milestone would happen as single mom.  When Kylie was 5 I got married.  My friends and family know what I went through and it is true that you can't understand how great something is unless you have experienced how bad it can be.  I don't regret my first marriage because I gained my son Gage out of it and I know that I have the “Real Thing” this time with Ryan!

In 2008 I was divorced and I spent the next four years of my life focusing on what was important to me, my kids, my work, and myself.  I enjoyed the time I spent connecting with my kids on a deeper level.  MCH thrived with my energies fully focused on its growth.  And I've never spent so much time focusing on myself, discovering who I was, what I needed, what I was looking for and what I was worth.  I'm thankful to have had that time.

But in June 2012 my life went a direction that I didn't think would ever happen, I fell head over heels in love with Ryan.  The funny thing is that Ryan and I had known of each other and had met on several different occasions over the past 14 years.  Our best friends Bettina and Kurt had dated for the past 14 years.  Unfortunately, when we met they were in the process of separating.  It was an amicable separation and the day we discovered each other romantically was the day Kurt was moving some of his things out of Bettina’s place.  I was at Bettina's with our friend Mandy and we were getting ready to take Bettina out to a drag show for the night!  Ryan and Kurt stopped by and even though I had met Ryan 3 or 4 different times, the sparks flew the minute he walked through the door.  Bettina had recently told me that Ryan was getting divorced. I knew that Ryan had a similarly challenging past, like I had.  He really shouldn't have been ready to start dating but when you know it's right, you just know it is right. 

Our first month together we couldn't even spend a day apart from each other. I don't think either of us ever knew it was possible to feel so effortless about a relationship.  So, this is what it is all about.  It really does exist like this.  There is that one person that is meant for you.  Ryan is that person for me and I feel so blessed that I found the other half of my puzzle piece. Our romance bloomed and kept blooming over and over again.  By the following March, Ryan moved in with me and my two kids.  He brought three cats to join my cat and two dogs and we had a happy little menagerie of animals that quickly grew accustomed to each other.

The last four and half years have flown by and it seems sometimes that we have been together for a lifetime because of how deep our connection is and how natural and comfortable we are with each other.  Yet it also seems like we just started dating because we haven't moved past the honeymoon phase.  I never knew that I could be this happy.  My daughter, the wise one, told me some years ago that love and marriage are supposed to bring out the best in you and I believe that Ryan does that for me! He is my better half and brings out my better self.

This last summer we got engaged (engagement story coming up) and we purchased our home together and in September Ryan started working at MCH as the Facility Manager.  We love working together! We share a vision and a dream for the school and both of us do what we are good at and we get to see each other at times during the day.  I would spend every minute of my life with Ryan if I could.

I'm very happy to be taking the next step in our life by marrying my soul mate, the man of dreams, my best friend and the love of my life. I'm even more happy to have my closest friends and family with us to share this very magical, special, much deserved day with Ryan and me.  We both know that each and every one of you have been rooting for us as we have made our journey in life, through the bad times and through the good times, you have been with us and held us as we've cried, encouraged us as we persevered and cheered us along as we succeeded. We thank each of you for the part you have played in our lives, we truly wouldn't be here or have found each other without you.

Life can be like a puzzle, you live your life trying to put the pieces together only to find that you are missing that last piece. It’s been right by you this whole time but you just can’t find it. I found my missing puzzle piece in Jennifer and now my life is a beautiful picture. 

I grew up in Redmond Washington, with really the best family and childhood. My Dad, James, was a High School Principal and my mom, Barbara, was a stay at home mom. I have two siblings, my older sister Melissa and younger brother Phil; yes, I am the middle child. We were all born in Mount Vernon Washington, moved to Ellensburg Washington when I was three and then when I was five, my family moved to the family home my mom still lives in to this day in Redmond.

Growing up I was into sports. I played hockey, was a competitive swimmer, played basketball and had a short stint with baseball and football. My sister and brother and all our neighborhood friends would always be outside playing, jumping our bikes off ramps we constructed, building forts in the woods and neighborhood pick-up games. We were always active, my mom and dad’s life I think consisted of taking all three of us to team practices and games, feeding us and working. They showed us love and taught us respect and values. Both of my parents are my role models to this day.

I became a teenager and girls became more important to me than anything else. My dad taught me how to treat a woman in the way he treated my mom, as did my mom to my dad. I didn’t know it then but their relationship is what I wanted when I grew up. They had fun, they were best friends and loved each other, it seemed so effortless and so natural. God led me down a path to find that person for me. I took some trails off that path in a different direction with different relationships and a marriage. One of those trails gave me my beautiful daughter Kayla at the age of 18. She made me responsible and was and still is my little angel, as she led me back to my path. Along the way, I had other trails and a trail that looked like the path. I do not regret any of it because it shaped me into who I am today and my path led me to Jennifer, my best friend, my love.  Our love is effortless, natural like we have known each other for ever. I know now, that I had to live through everything that I did to find her, it was the way it was supposed to happen.

Five years ago, my two best friends Scott and Kurt and I were all going through relationship break ups at the same time.  All of us were wondering what in the world was happening. I was in Seattle dropping off some paperwork and called Kurt, he said he was in Seattle stopping by his ex-girlfriend Bettina’s to pick up some of his things and told me I should go there with him. I was very tired, having been up all night doing the paperwork that I had just dropped off but said yes and met him over at Bettina's apartment. Bettina had some friends over and they were going out to a Drag Show that night. I didn’t want to go but this cute blonde girl said I should and told me that I didn’t have to stay long. A woman was the last thing on my mind at point in time but there was something about her; her eyes and smile and laugh just mesmerized me.  We hit it off from the very beginning and it was a magical connection, even though a connection was the furthest thing from my mind.

Jennifer and I had met a few times in the past but never really got to know each other. Both of us were in other relationships. Kurt and Bettina went out for 14 years and they were both my friends and they were both Jennifer’s friends, but Jennifer and I only met a few times during that 14-year period. We have pictures of us at Halloween parties at my Carnation house. One of us even playing foosball together! About a year before we started dating, we were on a large group camping trip in the San Juan's together and we talked a bit while eating oysters over the camp fire. But that was it, about three or four times that we interacted together over the previous 14 years.  Jennifer and I had traveled similar paths, she grew up in Cherry Crest in Bellevue, just on the other side of the woods from me in Rose Hill, in Kirkland.  I bought a house in Carnation and so did she at about the same time.  We had the same set of friends and similar life experiences, our paths ran parallel and then that day at Bettina’s apartment, they merged together. In the next four years, we moved in together and have let our relationship and love for each other grow naturally. We lean on each other, trust each other and support each other without forcing our relationship forward. This is why, I am so lucky!