We had no idea how our lives were about to change on the morning of September 10th, 2022. Through unplanned circumstances, we met via mutual friends while on separate European vacations in Barcelona, Spain. Without our beautiful friends Jennifer Crowley (MOH), Chuck Silivelio, Adam Clark, and Adam Winn (which spurred Gerald’s whole first euro trip for Adam W and Carla’s wedding), we may have gone through life without ever crossing paths. Michelle and Jenn were meeting Chuck and Adam C in Spain without knowing Gerald was tagging along. Michelle and Jenn had barely landed and were getting ready at their hotel while the guys were taking in the Spanish flavor before the bride and groom to-be met on the steps of the hotel. Gerald likes to claim “love at first sight” right then and there. Fast forward through gallivanting our way through Barcelona, we landed at Scobie’s Irish Pub. Chuck and Gerald were alone at the table for a moment; enough time for Chuck to lean in and ask Gerald, “So what do you think of Michelle?” with his best clever smile. Overly excited and nervous Gerald choked out, “She seems cool.” And then Chuck told Gerald, maybe the most important three words of his life, “Send it, Bro!” The match maker himself couldn’t have known that such a simple line would change two people’s paths in such a monumental way. The birth of our slogan was born. ‘Send it!’

Gerald: “Do you want to spend our last night in Barcelona together? No pressure.”

Michelle: “I would really like that. How about after the sunset we go do our own thing? I can’t stay out late late, leaving at like 7am and I also turn into a pumpkin after midnight.”

Gerald: “That sounds perfect!”

We have the text receipts if anyone wants to see proof of the cheesiness! We went to a very small, hole in the wall Negroni bar, that had maybe one or two other people in it, and we loved it. After our many adventures together concluded we had to say goodbye in Spain, but we texted, called regularly, and already felt intertwined in life. Only a few weeks later, Michelle came to visit Montana (not in the Midwest) for her very first time. Michelle got to meet some of Gerald’s closest friends and family while also seeing our first live music concert together at The Wilma … Big Velvet himself, Paul Cauthen. It was this trip that we verbalized our love for each other.

As our busy lives continued, we committed ourselves to one another and visited back and forth from Seattle to Whitefish. Gerald went through a professional transition that allowed him for some time away from work for a couple weeks before Christmas and visited/lived with Michelle in her downtown apartment. What a perfect blessing and opportunity to really see how living together would look like. It came almost too easy while learning and growing together.

2023 of adventures together: NYE trip with friends on the Oregon coast, all the Kraken/Sounders/Mariners/Seahawks games, first trip to visit the Albanez family in LA, Disneyland together!, celebrating Chuck’s 40th birthday in Denver, celebrating Annette and Korban’s wedding in Santa Barbara, Under the Big Sky music festival in Whitefish, Outside Lands music festival in San Francisco, Las Vegas trip to see Ed Sheeran (unfortunately concert was cancelled), Grandma’s 100th birthday party, our engagement trip to London, Liverpool, Edinburgh, St. Andrew’s, Barcelona, & Girona, and our first Thanksgiving and Christmas together.

2024 is bringing on a new adventure as we are moving back, full time to Seattle together! We hope that everyone reading this gets a chance to come visit us whenever possible once we get settled (outside of all the homies already in The Emerald City).

Let's f*cking send it!!!