Cadie had found me online and loved my artwork and started following me. She showed her dad my FB page and he was very impressed with my work and thought I was very pretty.

After some time, he wanted to ask me out but didn't know how because he didn't want to be the creepy internet guy. In January of 2022, the Museum of York County was hosting their annual Come Draw With Me event where local artists come to the museum to draw what inspires them from the nature exhibits while museum guests watch or draw along with them. Cadie definitely wanted to come and draw with me and D thought it'd be a perfect opportunity for him to meet me in person. I sat at the table with them and a couple of other kids chatting, laughing and being borderline rambunctious. He was about to ask if I wanted to go out with him sometime when I announced that I was moving to Alaska. I didn't specify that it was only a temporary move just for cruise ship season so he thought I was gone and didn't say anything.

Months go by and I had come home from my adventure in Alaska and got straight to work on a few major art projects including the drawing of my favorite tree. Normally D would like or comment on my work but he hadn't done that in a while. Turns out, he was sad that he thought he had lost the chance to have a shot with me and so he had stopped following me. I messaged him to ask if he had seen the drawing of the tree. He looked at it and said it was amazing...he even tried to buy it off me but it wasn't for sale.

Bit by bit we started talking over messenger and somewhere around late November/early December we went out on our first date to a brewery to see his friend (Chase Killough) play. After who knows how many hours, we got so absorbed in our conversation that we didn't realize that we had shut down the brewery and the only people who remained were the staff and they were waiting on us to leave.

After a date to the Christmas Trans-Siberian Orchastra show and many more dates after that, we quickly realized how well we meshed together and the kids and I got along great.

In April of 2023, D took me up to my favorite place (Dolly Sods WV) to see my favorite tree. He knew how special it was to me and unfortunately the tree is dying. The tree had seen me through my horrible former life and equally awful marriage and he wanted me to be able to visit the tree during a happy time in my life, especially if I never get to see it again. He also knew it was the perfect place to propose since the tree was one of the reasons why we got together in the first place. There, he knelt down at her roots and underneath her stretching canopy, he presented me with a ring and asked if I would stay with him forever.

Afterward, he wanted to rush down to check into the cabin even though I couldn't quite understand why. I opened the front door and there was twinkly lights, sparkly confetti and balloons leading into the living room with pictures of us and the kids everywhere. I walked in and the kids jumped out and shouted and hugged me! I had no idea that they had come! They had drove separately in Gigi's car and had checked into the cabin before we did to set everything up. "You're not just marrying me," he said, "you're marrying all of us". That evening we had a wonderful home-cooked dinner and sat in front of the big stone fireplace and relived the day over and over and laughed and started coming up with ideas for the wedding.