Cole and Avery first crossed paths back in 2018 when Avery peeped her head into a facetime call between Cole and his childhood best friend Taylor Nay, while she was attending Cumberland University with Avery in Ave’s home state, Tennessee. Cole was immediately smitten, and affectionately referred to Avery as The Tennessee Rocket for the next several years. They occasionally slid into each other’s DMs from time to time whilst Avery was teaching in Dubai and Cole was managing a gold mine in the equally picturesque town of Sudbury, Ontario. However, their paths would not cross in person until December of 2021 when Avery flew up to Edmonton to visit Taylor and some of the other Cumberland girlies. Taylor, as you will see is a pivotal character in their story, so much so they should probably name their first child after her.

On this trip Taylor and her friends and family introduced Avery to much of Canada’s beauty and unknowingly her future husband. One such landmark was Jasper, where Avery spent most of a snowboarding trip falling down the mountain and Cole, who had so generously volunteered to drive the girls on their trip, spent the majority of the day picking her back up out of the snow. Later that night after several games of Canadian Quarter Hockey, Taylor accidentally flipped the deadbolt of their shared room and fell into the sleep of the dead, effectively locking Avery, Liv, and Dayle out in subzero temperatures. Cole was kind enough to offer them the second bed in his room for the night where they stayed up the majority of the evening swapping stories. Several nights later at an Eggnog Soiree of sorts Tay and Avery were attending, Tay left a little early and Cole again, so kindly, volunteered to drive Avery home later on. Now this party was peak Covid and later became known as the Covid Super Spreader. Tay along with half the attenders caught it, and due to the chaos in the covid tested flights and border security it was decided Avery might have to find another place to stay so she could return to the US after New Year’s in time for work. Who should volunteer their house as her new quarantine crash pad? You guessed it, Cole and his wonderful father Dave. During this stay the pair, who were now very much enamored with one another, had about 50 first dates in a week. Cole took a few vacation days and dazzled Avery with all of his hometown's most impressive landmarks like the West Edmonton Mall, Joey’s, White Av, the Talus Dome. And as everyone was home for the holidays, within a week of meeting Cole, Avery had met most all of his family, extended family, and friends.

As Avery neared the end of her trip Cole took her to one last Edmonton bash for New Years. At midnight Avery was in need of a New Years kiss, and unsurprisingly Cole volunteered. Now Avery, along with the rest of the Green’s does love a Volunteer- go Vols baby! It was at this time that she realized she really did love this one in particular and true to her nature of saying exactly what pops into her head unfiltered she unceremoniously blurted out “I think I love you Cole”. Cole did not miss a beat as he had also realized he was falling in love with her and told her so, and not one to be upstaged he then added “I’m working a FiFo job right now I could just come live with you every two weeks in the US, and if it works out we will find someplace for both of us to live”. That is exactly what they did, after 12 days of knowing each other they moved in together, every second week for almost a year Cole flew from Ontario to live with Avery in Colorado or she flew to him in Toronto.

In the two weeks Cole was gone each month they would have a facetime dates every night, send cartoons they had drawn back and forth of their adventures that month together, or snippets of songs Cole had learned to play for Avery, or Cole would teach Avery about chemical engineering while she googled many of the words he said. When Cole would come visit they would take road trips out west or down south, or Cole would work out of Avery’s Art classroom while delighting her students with videos of giant blasts at the mines he was working on. Avery then got a job back home in Nashville teaching at her old college so the two packed up her air-conditionless car and road tripped home on i-40 through the dead summer heat. In Tennessee, as he does everywhere, Cole instantly charmed all of Avery’s friends and family and got quickly onboard with most all things southern: food, music, and football to name a few. However they hated having to drop Cole at the airport every other week and both still wanted a few more Visa’s in their passport. Neither thrived in the other’s home climate, Cole having adapted to conditions fit for a polar bear and Avery preferring the climate of a lizard terrarium. They had several countries on the list but it turns out the best place to “meet in the middle" was at the other side of the world. Cole’s dream job came through in a little town called Newcastle in New South Wales, Australia. So in November of 2022 they set off on their next adventure down under.

Avery will tell you that before Cole she was always afraid of the idea of “settling down”, but Cole did not settle anything about her life, only reinvigorated it and became her forever adventure partner and best friend. Within the first year of meeting the two had visited 5 countries, 9 states, two provinces and 3 continents with no signs of slowing down.

Though this story was quite lengthy, it’s only because they are both extremely long-winded. The story of how they got together is actually quite short as there was never a “talking phase” from the day they met they only had eyes for each other. From the first day to present they have not gone a day without catching up with one another, even 4 years later Cole still calls Avery on his 10 minute walk home from work. They have apparently not run out of things to talk about yet, which wouldn't surprise most of you that know them. Though there are many factors of happenstance that brought them together be that quarantines, strong Canadian lager, or the running theory of conspiratory match-making by Taylor Nay, sometimes when you meet your person jumping headlong into things pays off in the most beautiful of ways. In December of 2024 the pair took a trip home to see their families and on a layover in LA, at the top of Griffiths Observatory Cole decided he wanted a wife, this time Avery was the one to volunteer, quite enthusiastically I might add.