Our Story
How We Met
After much prayer and consideration Kaylee knew her future husband was not going to show up to her door step like her Amazon packages do. Therefore this led to the world of online dating for her! About the same time Leo’s brother had mentioned to him about joining online dating.
Even with the mileage radius set, somehow Kaylee found Leo’s profile…400 miles away. The next morning while Kaylee was at work she received a notification, a smile instantly filled her face, Leo sent a message! Leo did not waste much time and had asked to FaceTime.
After greeting each other, first question Leo asked was, “are you a Christian?” This set a precedent to Kaylee. After the first initial FaceTime Kaylee got off the phone and said out loud, “wow God!” Instantly knowing this was different and began praying further for direction and guidance.
A few days later during a conversation of wanting to meet up in person. Kaylee said why not meet halfway this weekend. Leo very quickly said yes! The planning began, Leo said halfway! Early Saturday morning we both set out to meet, Hot Springs was the turning point where Kaylee first said yes to being Leo’s girlfriend!
That Hot Springs trip was just the beginning of travel for us; Tennessee and Oklahoma quickly became regular weekend trips, 483 miles seemed like nothing. Although Hot Springs was such a joy, the rest of Arkansas was not our friend while traveling. The unexpected sudden massive hail storm that hit driving down the interstate or the possible speeding ticket, neither stopped our trips to see each other.
Multiple daily calls, FaceTimes, and texts became quite the routine as we continued daily growing together. We did not let the 483 miles interfere with growing together, it has allowed us to learn how to better communicate with one another and truly appreciate our time together.
The Proposal
Kaylee and Leo both knew early on into dating they wanted to spend the rest of their life together, it was just a matter of when. Kaylee being the strong willed stubborn one, each time Leo brought up getting married, Kaylee said, "I will not say yes, until after we have dated for a year." Why a year? A wise man, Poppy, once shared with me(Kaylee) that you should get to know someone in all seasons of life over the course of a year. Leo was persistent despite Kaylee's stubbornness.
Valentine's weekend 2023; Leo made a promise to Kaylee to spend the rest of their life together. Kaylee knew deep down then he was the one, as her mother instilled in her from a young age, "once you know, you know." She knew!
One hot August afternoon, Kaylee got home from work with a package on her doorstep, surprisingly not from Amazon. :) Very confused by the package; Kaylee opened it to find a small red jewelry box. A RING!!! So confused, Kaylee quickly called Leo and began questioning him on why he mailed a ring to the house. Leo laughingly denied sending the ring. After much back and forth about the mysterious ring, Kaylee was still convinced that Leo had something to do with this ring.
Later that evening on another call, the "ring" was brought up again, where Leo assured Kaylee he did not send this ring. Kaylee finally believed him, but remained very confused about the mysterious ring. A couple days went by, Kaylee's mom called her and said, "you know that ring you called me about the other day, well I just got one too." What, how, why, and where are these rings coming from that now my mother would have one too? Kaylee got an email notification that her jeans recently ordered had been delivered, with no package of Judy Blue Jeans delivered, Kaylee began investigating. Just so happened that the time of the delivery matched the exact time of the delivery time stamp of the security video of the ring delivery. Instantly everything made since, that good deal on the jeans, was quite the scam. The mysterious ring made sense, as Kaylee ordered her mother some too, because the deal was so good. Lots of laughs later, an apology was given to Leo for all the time accusing him of this ring.
At this point, the ring talk was nothing new for us. Weekend travels and adventures led to ring shopping and ring sizing. 6.5 and 9.5 quickly became our saying. To the jeweler it was just ring sizes, but to us it was significant numbers to represent our future rings to signify our commitment to one another.
In March I(Kaylee) flew out to Arizona to visit Leo before leaving the country on a mission trip. Like many weekend trips we didn't necessarily have anything planned other than Sunday morning worship and spending time together, so I(Kaylee) thought. Leo had quite the other plans; dinner reservations with a gorgeous sunset view overlooking the city and mountains and a proposal planned. As Leo took my hand and begin to reflect on the journey God has brought us on, tears filled my eyes. This was the moment that we both have been praying for, our forever.