How We Met…
Fate brought us together… or at least we like to think. CJ had a roommate one year at the Naval Academy that was one of Aaron’s (Kaila’s brother) lifelong best friends. Over time, and through several amazing friends, CJ met Aaron in Jacksonville one weekend in the Fall of 2010. Aaron, being the biggest Gator Fan ever, invited CJ to a Gator Football Game. They quickly became friends over a few drinks and next thing you know, they found a place to lay their heads on a Friday night in Gainesville. This Friday night, Kaila decided to go home and pay her parents a visit and gave her brother a key to her apartment. Long story short, CJ slept at Kaila’s apartment before even meeting her. Gameday came on an early Saturday morning and Kaila drove back to Gainesville to tailgate with Aaron. As she walked up to the tailgate to find her brother, she couldn’t help but notice the new guy with the awesome orange and blue converse shoes. She walked up to him, complimented his shoes, and he introduced himself as the guy who slept at her apartment the night before with Aaron. This guy with the awesome shoes was of course, CJ. We spent the rest of football season going to every home game together. We built a friendship over four months, usually with CJ visiting Kaila in Gainesville. In February of 2011, CJ’s immediate family was visiting for CJ’s Winging Ceremony with the Navy. He invited Kaila to the ceremony, and to her surprise, finally told her how he felt about their friendship. He really liked her. We built our relationship on the friendship we already established, and we can truly call each other best friends because of it.
How He Proposed…
After two long deployments and three years of dating, we decided to celebrate Valentine’s Day in a special way on February 14th, 2014. It was one of our first Valentine’s Days spent together because of deployments, so CJ planned a wonderful night for us. He let Kaila sleep in all morning while he “went into work,” which Kaila thought was the best gift ever. He then surprised her with beautiful sunflowers (her favorite) and about a ton of chocolate paired with wine around noon. We took a walk on the beach and then got ready for a nice dinner at one of our favorite restaurants in Jacksonville, Capital Grille. We went to dinner and shared a bottle of wine while reminiscing on how we met and all of the great times we had back when we were just friends going to Gator Football games. Kaila had been told that CJ had to “work” all weekend and that Valentine’s Day would be our only time together during the entire four-day-weekend. The night was absolutely perfect and romantic as Valentine’s Day should be, thanks to CJ’s incredible planning. Little did Kaila know that the weekend was just getting started. The next morning came, Saturday February 15th, 2014, and CJ found out he actually “didn’t have to work” and begged Kaila to go to our favorite beach, the Guana Reserve beach access. CJ was living about 15 miles north right on the beach and it was cold, so Kaila didn’t understand why we had to go to that specific beach, but CJ persisted. We went to breakfast and made our way down to this perfect, beautiful beach we like to call our own. This beach is so special to us; it was the first place CJ took Kaila when she visited him in Jacksonville back in January of 2011 (we were still friends) and where we both realized we wanted to be more than just friends, even though we had no idea we both felt this way. When CJ pulled up to the beach access, we walked hand-in-hand down the boardwalk onto the beach. Well, sneaky CJ had planned out the perfect place to propose; he scouted it out the day before (on Valentine’s Day) when he was supposed to be “working” while letting Kaila sleep in. That day he never went into work, of course, and treated himself to a nice breakfast and walked the beach planning where he’d propose the next day. So his perfect place to pop the question was taken, some kids were hanging out there and it just didn’t feel right to CJ. This beach is always deserted, so we kept walking. Kaila did her usual; running up and down the beach searching for awesome shells that washed up the night before. Suddenly, to the point where Kaila almost fell, CJ stopped walking. Kaila turned around to CJ getting down on one knee. After hugging and crying for what seemed like forever, CJ told her how he really wasn’t working at all the entire weekend. He had actually taken leave and told Kaila his secret plan. Kaila had about an hour to pack for two nights in Savannah, where CJ had booked a beautiful room in downtown Savannah, a spa day, and a fancy dinner at Alligator Soul (another one of our favorites). Our weekend together was just absolutely perfect, strolling around the old town and eating to our heart’s content.
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