Raven

The Meeting Believe it or not, we met online. We didn't meet on some random dating site though, we met in a land of fantasy and adventure. Together we battled epic monsters, delved the deepest dungeons, and wielded awesome cosmic powers with alacrity! That's right, we met playing Guild Wars 2! Raven needed one more person to fill out her squad for a dungeon run and who should appear but an uber skilled elementalist with floppity ears and a can do attitude. Raven's gigantic Norn warrior made my diminutive Asura (think big rabbit) elementalist the final member of the squad and thus began our epic journey together. The Highlights For the first year and nine months we were together, it was a series of trips back and forth between Columbia, Missouri and Huntsville, Alabama. The drives were long arduous journeys, but always worth it to see one another. The first time Travis met any of Raven's family was at her family reunion in October 2014. It was a bit overwhelming but it got introductions done in record time. The reunion was on the way down to Orlando, FL to spend a magical week in Universal Studios and Disney World followed by 3 days in Destin, FL on the beach to recover. Later that year, on December 28, 2014, we FINALLY moved in together. Travis brought all of his stuff from Missouri and we had an amazing merger of boxes in our new apartment together.... some of which were never unpacked there. We have now lived together for well over a year and are in a wonderful house with our dog Cora and cat Tang and we couldn't be happier... and yes we did finally unpack all of our boxes!!!! The Proposal Raven was starting to give up hope that Travis would ever put a ring on it. Little did she know, that he had been plotting and scheming, trying to come up with the perfect way to ask. After considerable thought he finally developed a somewhat reasonable idea, and went with it! On the morning of January 23, 2016 he started putting his plan into motion. While Raven was out running errands and doing some shopping, Travis began to decorate the wall in our family room with framed pictures of us, Cora, and Tang. The pictures showed bits and pieces of our adventures together including our trips to Universal Studios, Disney World, and the Beach. Beneath the carefully selected pictures on a tiny little table sat a candle and the ring box. Travis wore a dress shirt and slacks with shined shoes, all covered by his robe, a pair of sweat pants, and some slippers so that when Raven came home, she saw only a relaxed comfortable Travis welcoming her home. He nonchalantly lead her into the room and pointed her toward the wall. Raven took her time looking through the pictures and exclaiming with glee over the happy shared memories. Finally she looked down at the table and saw the Vera Wang box and with her breath held in anticipation, snatched it up and opened it to find .... nothing! The box was empty. Raven stared at Travis with a confused and somewhat worried expression on her face. This is where things started to get fun for Travis, as he had been setting up this proposal for a few days. Two days prior, he had instigated a conversation with Raven as to whether or not he was already planning things for Valentines Day and repeatedly told her that "there is nothing in the guest room closet, I'm not hiding anything in the guest room closet." Naturally there was only so much of this that she could take, and the next morning when he went to work, she checked the closet.... which of course had nothing in it. Now, after she perused the pictures on the wall, and opened the empty box, Travis pointed to another closet and very deliberately said that "there is nothing in that closet." Raven ran to the closet and jerked it open to find another bigger box within. While Raven worked on untying the knot of ribbon keeping that box closed, Travis quickly stripped out of the robe, sweat pants, and slippers and took a position on one knee holding the RING up to her. As Raven turned around, she saw a transformed Travis, no longer in comfy house clothes, but dressed nicely and extending a SHINY to her. Travis delivered an epic speech that will forever be burned into the hearts and minds of us both. She then considered it for an agonizing half second before happily saying YES!