They met when Andrea started working campus security, but Dave had a girlfriend so nothing happened at first. Sometime after Dave and his girlfriend parted ways, Andrea and Dave went to a paintball event through school and started talking there. People were trying to make plans to get together but Andrea wasn’t able to make it, so she reached out to Dave separately and asked him on a date! He said yes, of course! They went to the Lakeview Drive In for root beer floats in Winona for their first date! Dave was unsure at first whether Andrea actually liked him because they started hanging out during finals and Andrea was always studying and couldn’t hang out much! She liked him a lot though! On May 19, 2010, Dave was moving back to Indiana and Andrea was staying in Minnesota so they decided to give a long distance relationship a try and never looked back! It’s been a heck of a ride!

Almost 10 years later, Dave and Andrea bought her engagement ring together in September of 2019, and Dave was going to propose at a later date. For the previous 5 or 6 years, Dave had always said he would be way too nervous to travel on a plane with an engagement ring, so when Andrea went home for Christmas that year, having no ring on her finger, she didn’t think she would get it then either. Dave came home for a few days and they went to the Rotary Christmas Lights display in La Crosse, Wisconsin with their families, and to Andrea’s utter surprise, he proposed in front of a beautiful set of Christmas lights (she cried). That was one of the happiest days of their lives!