When I first saw Joseph from across the room, my heart screamed 'that one', but my conscious said 'leave him alone, you're too crazy'. So I did. We went our separate paths of bettering ourselves and one night our paths crossed again. We were at a mutual friend's home for a celebration. We chatted briefly outside, just small talk. Then before he left that night he said 'have a goodnight mama'. I could hardly contain myself. That night I messaged him and asked him to get coffee, or something, sometime. I expected an 'I'm taken' or a non-committal 'sure' so when I received back 'I'd love to' I screamed. The next morning we met on the porch of a house near and dear to us both. He brought me iced coffee and we awkwardly sat there talking while people arrived there. I knew then.

After just over a year of dating we were headed off on our first vacation with our girls in tow. We were going to camp for the weekend at Maquoketa Caves State Park. After what should have been a straight forward drive, we took some backroads and finally made it to the campground to find one lonely campsite available. The site was a hike in site with no electricity and our vacation quickly turned from a nice camping trip to roughing it. We set up camp anyway and got settled in because of my stubbornness and will to push on despite the turn of events. Once camp was set up we took a drive into town to get our groceries for the weekend. We made our dinner and were relaxing for the evening with s’mores when all of a sudden our trash came under attack by a small group of raccoons. Now backstory here, I love those videos of the cute rescue and rehabilitation raccoons and am always asking Joseph if we can get one, but these were not those raccoons. Joseph bravely warded off the trash pandas, as he so eloquently calls them, and we took the trash out as a family. When we returned to our campsite I was attempting to settle the girls down and get them to bed in the tent. All of a sudden Joseph calls “Hey baby” and I turn around to find him down on one knee, ring box in hand. He said “I love you. There’s no one else I’d rather chase off trash pandas with. Will you marry me?”. Duh!