Sandra Sands browses through local profiles on the online dating site Match.com. Sandra, a single mother living and working in Harrisonville, Mo., is looking for a good man to share her life with. She stops on Ron Kleier's page. He's cute, and she likes what she reads in his profile. Sandra sends Ron an e-mail, introducing herself and saying hello.

It all started with that first message in 2003. Ron and Sandra are now married and living in Spring Hill. From their first meeting on Match.com to Ron's online proposal to the couple's current Internet businesses, the Web has played a large role in Ron and Sandra's relationship.

Ron replied to Sandra's first e-mail, and soon the two were corresponding regularly. Ron had recently retired, having sold the 12 Country Mart stores he owned in eastern Kansas and Oklahoma in 2002, and was looking for a woman he could enjoy spending time with.

In their e-mails, they soon noticed their overlapping pasts. Both of their families lived in Overland Park in the 1960s, their homes 2 miles apart. Both families then moved to the Wellsville area around 1970. Sandra's brother was in Ron's 1976 Wellsville High School graduating class. Despite the five-year difference in their ages, they even went to school together. Wellsville students, from kindergarten to high school, all attend classes in the same building and eat in the same commons area.

“I may have passed her in the halls, and we had no idea who each other were,” Ron said.

The more Ron and Sandra found out about each other, the more they found they had in common. They both even looked each other up in their old school yearbooks. With all this in common, they decided it was time to finally meet.

On July 18, 2003, Sandra sat nervously at Applebee's Neighborhood Bar and Grill in Grandview, Mo., waiting for Ron to arrive. The location was a natural middle point between Sandra's home in Harrisonville and Ron's place in Olathe. While she had talked to Ron repeatedly, Sandra knew that some people don't accurately represent themselves on online sites. Adding to her nerves was the fact that Ron was running a few minutes late. But shortly after Ron walked in, apologizing for running behind schedule, all of Sandra's worries evaporated.

“I loved him instantly,” Sandra said.

The couple traded stories over a shared plate of nachos and arranged a second date just days later. They soon were dating regularly. While their relationship was progressing, Ron grew increasingly restless in retired life. He missed running his own business and began looking for another business venture. In July 2004, Ron moved to Bonita Springs, Fla., to pursue an ownership opportunity. Sandra moved to Florida and in with Ron in early August.

The couple loved living in Florida. They loved the Southern weather almost as much as they enjoyed avoiding the Midwest winters. They rented a house just three miles from the Gulf of Mexico and spent much of their time basking in the Florida sun. Though Ron's first business opportunity fell through, another possibility soon presented itself. In August 2004, Ron and Sandra purchased an all-natural sun-care products line, Mexitan, from a local woman. The previous owner sold the products locally, but Ron and Sandra decided to expand their customer base by also making the products available online.

The couple decided to move back to the Kansas City area in August 2005, buying a home in Spring Hill. Ron and Sandra each have three children from previous marriages, all of whom still lived in this area, and the couple missed being around their families.

Shortly after moving to Spring Hill, the couple decided to start another online business: JumboGreetingCards.com. The winter months were a slow time for the sun-care products, so the couple added the cards site as another way to keep busy. The site allows customers to design custom jumbo greeting cards and banners. The business was inspired by Ron's father, who made hand-painted jumbo greeting cards in the family's basement when Ron was growing up.

One January day, as Ron was working on the cards' Web site, he asked Sandra to look at the changes he had made. On the home page is a picture of a man and woman holding a banner. The messages on the banner switch every few seconds, giving prospective customers ideas of the different events for which the banners can be used. Added to the usual rotation was a banner with a new message: “Will you marry me, Sandra? With all my love, Ron.”

“Is that for real?” Sandra asked, thinking maybe Ron was just kidding.

“It's for real,” Ron answered.

Sandra immediately said yes, and later that day, she designed her own banner, signed with her nickname, that better summed up her feelings: “Yes, yes, yes, I'll marry you. Loving you forever, Happy.”

The couple eloped to Las Vegas on March 8, 2006, and have been increasingly busy with their online ventures ever since. Earlier this month, the couple started their third online business, COCOcandleNUTS. This business sells scented all-natural candles in coconut shells.

The three online businesses keep the couple extremely busy. The lower level of their home is their business center, with three flat-screen computers tracking online orders, boxes of the all-natural lotions stacked six high and two deep against one wall, and crates of scented candles lining the hallways. Ron and Sandra print all the banners and greeting cards on design-shop-quality printers in the basement office of their home. They also make all the candles right at home, using a turkey fryer and adding their own scents. All of the products, including the sun-care lotions, are shipped directly from their house.

With the booming business and the fact that there are no other employees, the Internet is still having a large effect on their relationship: the two spend nearly every waking hour together. The only time they are apart is when Sandra, who's a registered nurse, works one day a week for a doctor in Olathe. But they wouldn't have it any other way.

“That one day a week is hard, being away from him,” Sandra said. “People ask me if I get sick of being around Ron all the time. But we really complement each other. It's great to finally find someone who's so fantastic.”

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