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This week, Brad and I are celebrating 3 years of the wild adventure called marriage. In that time we moved from Utah to Florida, became expert Disneyworld patrons, saw every part of the Space Coast, got evacuated with Hurricane Dorian, moved from Florida to Tennessee in the middle of a pandemic, bought a house, and are now tackling masters degrees. What a ride it has been so far! So in honor of that, allow me to share with you a little of our story.

Brad decided to take a year and move to Utah in order to ski and hike as much as he could in the Rocky Mountains. He never expected running into me and Tessa and how that would change all of our lives. A year and half later, we were right at that point where we were starting to talk about getting married but there was some hesitancy because his job while perfect for a skiing bachelor was not perfect for a family man. After many discouraging applications to other jobs, finally he got a call offering him a position with the Air Force working at Cape Canaveral in Florida.

A few weeks later he took me and Tessa to Grand Teton National Park to propose to both of us. A few months ago I wrote about our first trip to Grand Teton and how everything went wrong- but it became an important place to us because of that and the perfect place to begin this new chapter of our lives. I was holding Tessa when he got down with the ring, and when she saw it she immediately grabbed the ring with a loud ‘Mine!’. Since we had just been throwing rocks in the river we were worried that my ring would end up there too. We finally wrestled the ring out of her little hand and in it’s place Brad gave her a necklace that he had bought for her. Two weeks later, Brad packed up his things to make the trip down to Florida to start his job.

We spent the next few months planning a wedding over the phone and flying back and forth to see each other. He flew in for the wedding the day before then we had one day after the wedding where we went to Park City. But early the next morning we were getting all of my things packed up and Brad was on the road again towards Florida this time caravanning with some family members, boxes of my things, and my dog Scout. Tessa and I flew down a week later to start our new chapter on the Atlantic Coast.

My in-laws said they would watch Tessa one day so Brad and I could have a day together and so we skipped off to enjoy the holiday festivities of The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios. With butterbeers in hand we made our way around the park, riding all the rides, loving the festive touches they had everywhere, and allowing ourselves the nerdy thrill of being there. We caught the show at the end of the night playing across the Hogwarts castle with music, animation, and a fantastic light display.

This was our third day in Florida and the first of many places around the state that we would explore together. With a great toast of butterbeer we started off a marriage and a new chapter of living on the coast of Florida.