How we got here

How we met

Angela was scrolling through online dating profiles when she stopped on a picture of a man getting his glasses knocked askew by his dog, Ike. Here's a guy who is not fussy and not afraid to laugh at himself. He'd also written that the two things he couldn't do without were coffee and his Kindle. That was enough. She reached out.

That was July 29, 2023. What followed was a week of messages that neither of us could stop sending. In many dating exchanges, longer messages give way to shorter, near-instant chats. For us, the messages got longer and longer. They were more long-form letter than instant chat, and got deeper and deeper into who we were and what we were looking for.

We talked about everything: roasted vegetables, pickling, taco bars, teaching, and our kids' communal fear that a bite of sourdough bread was likely fatal.

And we talked about the hard things. Two long marriages that ended after more than twenty years. Two people who had to rediscover themselves and were trying, cautiously, to do this. We each mentioned that our therapists had given us the green light to date.

There was a phrase that ran through all of it. Angela had vowed to herself that she would be 100% Angela, nothing less, no suppressing herself to make someone comfortable. David said he was trying to do the same, 100% David. We decided this was the only way it could work. And work it did.

We met on August 3, 2023 at the Cougar Mountain Zoo. David brought smoked-chicken BBQ sandwiches, blueberries from his yard, sunscreen, and water. We walked the whole zoo and talked, and at the end, saying goodbye, both our heads were spinning.

What happened next happened fast. David came home and switched his profile to invisible, knowing this was the one he had been waiting for. Angela had done the same after the first day of messaging. We spoke every day for hours on the phone until we could get to our second date. At Snoqualmie Falls, we walked down to the water on one of the hottest days of the year. We sat on the rocks with our bare feet in the water and told our stories. We shared our first kiss on the overlook to the falls, among crowds of tourists, but for us, only the two of us were there that day.

Things were happening fast, but so was the approach of the school year, when Angela's schedule would become more locked down. After our third date, we went on a weeklong vacation to Camano Island. Nothing like jumping in feet first. David brought board games in case the conversation dried up. It never occurred to Angela that we might get tired of each other. She was hooked.

We had both spent a long time waiting, a long time telling ourselves we should stop expecting the can't-concentrate, can't-eat feeling of falling for someone. We'd told ourselves this was not part of dating at fifty. And then it showed up anyway, and we knew it had been worth holding out for.

Now is the time, we told each other that first week, and every day since.

The proposal

On the second anniversary of our first date, David recreated it. He brought us back to the Cougar Mountain Zoo with the same BBQ sandwiches, and we walked the whole zoo again. In front of the parrots, he proposed. Angela said yes, and then kept asking, “Did I already say yes? YES!”

And our sidekicks

The golden retriever in the photo is Ike, and he's looking forward to the wedding. He's one of a full crew: Ike and Pixie, Angela's dog Danny, our cats Emmie and Pippa, and our newest kitten, Juniper. With four kids and six pets, the house is full when everyone's home.

The photo that started it all