About Us: A Ten Year Highlight Reel
The College Years: 2004 - 2006
We began dating in June 2004 when we were undergraduates at the University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB), and are excited to be married so close to our 10 year anniversary. We met in an Egyptian archaeology class, and after a few weeks of Kyle strategically sitting next to Amanda we went on our first unofficial date at Javan's, a sandwich shop in Isla Vista. After a few intense weeks of being together, Kyle left for a summer study abroad program at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom. Over the course of the summer we exchanged hundreds of emails, and Kyle sent at least one postcard a week to Amanda telling her of his travels and excitement for the future. Once Kyle returned, we spent the next year taking classes together, getting to know each other's friends, and, of course, meeting the family!
The summer of 2005 began with Amanda going to Peru for a bioarchaeology project, and returning to Kyle's new gigantic beard! We continued to take classes together, including an archaeology class that let us traveling all around the Central Coast. In June, 2006 we both graduated with honors from UCSB, Kyle with a Bachelor's degree in English and Cultural Anthropology with a minor in Professional Writing and Amanda with a Bachelor's degree in Biological Anthropology and minor in English. That year we left Isla Vista and moved into our first apartment together in downtown Santa Barbara.
The summer of 2005 began with Amanda going to Peru for a bioarchaeology project, and returning to Kyle's new gigantic beard! We continued to take classes together, including an archaeology class that let us traveling all around the Central Coast. In June, 2006 we both graduated with honors from UCSB, Kyle with a Bachelor's degree in English and Cultural Anthropology with a minor in Professional Writing and Amanda with a Bachelor's degree in Biological Anthropology and minor in English. That year we left Isla Vista and moved into our first apartment together in downtown Santa Barbara.
The Downtown Santa Barbara Years: 2006 - 2010
For most of our senior year of college, Kyle was working in the Operations department at Network Hardware Resale (NHR), a company that buys, refurbishes, and resells computer equipment. Kyle was asked to come to work for NHR full time. Amanda, meanwhile, was hired to work for a company called Thomson Reuters (now Truyven Health Analytics) to analyze data and write about the health care system. We spent four years living in an amazing (but small) apartment in downtown Santa Barbara. We were both very fortunate and worked hard, quickly getting promoted up the ranks at our respective jobs, and during this time celebrated our five year anniversary by going to Denver, Colorado. We had an AMAZING life in Santa Barbara, surrounded by wonderful friends who were always up for going on crazy adventures, whether it involved hiking, running, wine or beer drinking, and eating, and are lucky to be able to return often and have them visit us, too.
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The First Atlanta Year: 2010 - 2011
In August 2010 we moved to Atlanta, Georgia so that Amanda could begin a PhD program at Emory University. We loaded everything we could squeeze into a Pod and then drove across the country to begin a new, and slightly scary, adventure. Our first year in Atlanta was an adjustment that included a massive snowstorm that shut down the city for an entire week, Kyle learning how to work at home, and Amanda trying to remember how to be a student. But it also was the year that we brought home our fantastic and silly pup, Sprocket!
The Engagement: April 30, 2011
We were really unsatisfied with our first rental house in Atlanta, and we knew we wanted to move. We found a cute apartment in a big yellow house, and moved in the day after Amanda finished her first year in the PhD program. We spent the entire day moving and unpacking, and Kyle offered to go pick up dinner from Mary Macs - a local Atlanta fried chicken legacy, but insisted that Amanda get cleaned up while he was gone. She grudgingly got ready, and set up a table out on the new patio overlooking the backyard...and waited and waited and waited for Kyle to return. Little did she know that he was trying to get in contact with her family in order to ask for their official permission...
Kyle returned home with dinner, and we sat outside on the patio and talked about how excited we were for the new house. The next hour or so is a bit of a blur, but it definitely involved Kyle giving a very loving speech and dropping to one knee and proposing with some help from Sprocket, and Amanda crying and laughing and smiling quite a lot. We quickly called family and friends, and sent pictures to everyone we could (with the ring on the wrong hand, because this was literally so unexpected that Amanda had no idea nor the senses to think about which hand was the right one).
Kyle returned home with dinner, and we sat outside on the patio and talked about how excited we were for the new house. The next hour or so is a bit of a blur, but it definitely involved Kyle giving a very loving speech and dropping to one knee and proposing with some help from Sprocket, and Amanda crying and laughing and smiling quite a lot. We quickly called family and friends, and sent pictures to everyone we could (with the ring on the wrong hand, because this was literally so unexpected that Amanda had no idea nor the senses to think about which hand was the right one).
The Next Four Years: 2011 - 2014
We had an amazing year in the apartment in the yellow house, but since we knew we would be in Atlanta for at least three or four more years, we decided to start looking for a real home. Within the course of a year, we not only got engaged, but we also bought an amazing house with a huge backyard for the dog, Amanda earned her Masters' degree in Anthropology, and Kyle was promoted at work again. Our house really has become a home, and in the summer of 2013 we landscaped our entire yard by hand, including planting a garden. We have been very fortunate to have made some amazing friendships in Atlanta and now have a great space to invite everyone over for incredible evenings by the fire-pit and to play yard games like bocce ball and corn hole. We've also taken numerous trips together, including another drive across country to spend a few weeks in California, and getaways to Washington DC, Nashville, and most recently, Amsterdam! On June 21, 2014 we look forward to celebrating our ten year anniversary and beginning the real countdown to being husband and wife.
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The Wedding: July 19, 2014
We look forward to having you join us for our wedding on July 19, 2014, where we hope to give you a small taste of what we enjoy - from the food we like to eat to the beer and wine we like to drink to the games we like to play. Most of all, we hope that it gives our families the chance to become one and an opportunity for us to thank those who we love the most for their ten years of support while we've been on this crazy ride.