My first inspiration to become a pilot was being a kid, five-year-old doing what five
year olds do, just causing trouble.
From what I remember, I came out to the living room and sat on our couch and I just did not
feel good, basically how I would describe it as just the feeling of the flu.
I don't remember the doctor visit specifically, but I was diagnosed with leukemia.
We really the only options for treatment were to either travel to Omaha or Denver.
After that very first trip, I was hooked on flying.
It was just my getaway.
I take my mind off what was ahead with treatment and all that, but my dad's passed away in
an accident when I was 11, and definitely the hardest experience I've gone through in
my life.
But I feel like every day I'm flying, it's our chance to reconnect and one of the reasons
I love flying so much.
It just makes that hard part of my life a little bit easier.
So the first time I flew with Missy, I was nervous because now I have the person who
I love the most in my hands, no pressure.
I'm like, okay, I'm going to get into the small airplane and I don't know how I'm going
to feel about that when he's just there, I'm just really safe around him and I trust him
too.
I was never nervous telling Missy about having cancer or anything really in my past.
I mean, that was one of the things I was always looking for.
And a future wife, I mean, is just to be supportive and accepting.
I knew that she had all those qualities and more.
His passion is for flying, absolutely enjoy that, that's his career and that's what he
wants to do.
And I completely trust him in what he does and he loves it.
Missy and I met at one of my fraternity parties.
Ironically enough, it was probably the last place either of us expected to meet.
I was not expecting to meet anyone, like any typical boyfriend or anything like that.
It was like one of those scenes from a movie where, you know, I was standing there with
some of my friends and I see, you know, some people separate from the crowd and I see her
over standing with her circle of friends.
As soon as she makes eye contact with me, like just, I didn't know what to do other than
Instead of dancing with me, he danced with like one of my good friends.
That went well.
He came up to me and asked me to dance with him next time.
I really liked him and I thought he was different compared to a lot of the other guys.
Our first date, I took her to upstream.
We had some dinner there and then he took me to a mini golf course thing.
He thought it was a good idea and we walked in there and it looked like really sketch
and he was like, he was personally nervous like, oh my gosh, I'm probably going to hate
me after this and it actually ended up really great and it was super fun.
I went back to the apartment and I tried to have her watch Top Gun, but she fell asleep.
That was a hard pill to swallow.
That was our first date.
It went well.
So the first time I kissed Missy was in her dorm room.
Just hanging out watching movies and it took a while because I've never kissed anyone
before and I've never had a boyfriend before.
We were just talking and then he just got closer and I just looked at her and just kind
of went for it.
Yeah, that was our first kiss.
Yeah, that's the rest of his history.
First time I said I love you.
He was first and he knew, he first told me.
We were sitting in my car at my apartment.
I had this long speech and I don't remember all the details other than she was laughing
because she knew what I was trying to say.
I'm just letting you know that I love you and you can do whatever you want with that.
I don't take this lightly.
I don't know how you're going to feel about me telling you this.
You don't have to say it right now if you're not comfortable.
There's really no other words to describe how I feel about you other than I love you
and something to that effect.
It felt perfect but I'm like, I just don't want to get my heart broken.
I'm uncomfortable with you.
I do trust you and so a couple weeks later I ended up saying it to people.
So Missy and I got engaged in San Diego.
He was going to position for Envoy.
I told her, hey, Envoy called me and they want me to come down to do the simulator ride
or to make her think that's where we were going.
I told her, I said, you know, no, I told the guys that it's going to be over our anniversary
and I asked them if you could come with me and they said, oh yeah, we'll get her a ticket.
Sure.
Okay, we can get out of Omaha and go to Texas.
All right, let's go.
She thought we were going down to Dallas, Texas.
And I'm like, oh, this is exciting.
This is so fun.
I arranged for the day that we were supposed to leave.
We went downtown.
We walked to the stream bridge and then he took me to this random building
and we ended up walking in these double doors and this guy just all in black
and he ended up being a ballroom dance instructor.
So he took, Zach took me ballroom dancing with him for an hour so we could dance.
And that was super fun because that's always something I asked him and wanted to do too
because I had a background going up with dance and I love it too.
And his dad used to be really good at dancing.
And then after that, we went to the F. Lee airfield.
And I went to the ticket counter and I'm like, okay, this is going to be a little difficult
because when we go up there, they're going to say your final destination is San Diego.
So while we were walking, I told her, hey, why don't you stand up the, you know,
over here by the benches with our bags.
I was just preoccupied and I was writing down like our luggage bags and everything.
So I went up to the podium and I told Leia said, listen, I said, I'm getting engaged.
She has no idea where we're going.
Can you just pretend like, you know, we're going to go to Texas.
And she's like, oh, don't worry about it. I got you.
And the first place we had to go to is Connected Minneapolis.
So I gave her her Minneapolis.
They kind of said, oh yeah, we have to connect to Minneapolis and then we'll go to Dallas, Texas.
So we opened the gate and our flight is canceled.
Yeah, that didn't sit well with me.
And I was, you know, in a panic because everything was on a timeline.
I would be nervous too.
You have an interview the next day and who knows if we get to quit or not.
And so he started making all these phone calls.
I'm like, okay, I'm just, you know what, I'm going to let him do his thing. It's okay.
One of my buddies was working the gate and he ended up turning the plane around,
the new plane that came over to pick us up.
We made it on that plane to Minneapolis now.
The problem was our connecting flight in Minneapolis.
We had 28 minutes to connect.
After a minute, so we started like running and running to get to our next stop.
I asked the lady with the clipboard.
I'm like, hey, where's the flight to San Diego?
Wait, why?
I'm like, I'm out of breath.
I'm like, what's going on?
I thought we're going to Texas.
And that's where it came out and Missy, like she didn't even have time to process
because we just had to book it to the gate.
We ended up flying there and I've always wanted to go out west.
We looked out and there was like cliffs in the ocean.
I got down on a knee and proposed.
And you're asking, just spend my life with him.
And I'm like, oh, that's great.
I'm like, I would love to.
So that's how that happened.
Melissa, I'm just so thankful for you being in my life.
I love you to death and just so blessed that God brought us together.
Thanks for always being there for me and being my biggest supporter,
looking forward to future family together and just being able to encourage you,
just like you encouraged me on a daily basis.
And I look forward to the rest of our life together.
I love you so much and I'm very thankful that God has put us together.
And I have no doubt that he is in a relationship and he's strengthening it day by day.
I love you forever and I'll love you for always.
