Andrew and Malia had been hearing about each other for a year through mutual friends. Andrew was in his final year of his PhD at University of Utah and claimed he "had enough friends" so didn't want to meet Malia. After Andrew moved to Colorado, he came back for Friendsgiving, which was being hosted at Malia's house in 2018. They spent an hour talking about Edward Abbey, Southern Utah, and travel, and how Malia was getting ready to move to Alaska, then said goodbye. A few days later, Malia reached out to Andrew and invited him to join her for one last Southern Utah visit. They ended up packing their bags and meeting in Southeastern Utah for some backpacking and canyoneering. On this trip, Malia casually threw out, "Come visit me in Alaska if you want!". Andrew reached out a month later and said he booked his flights to come stay with Malia in her 8x10 dry cabin in the most remote national park in the US for 10 days. Malia wasn't sure what she'd done. Andrew and Malia ended up experiencing rafting, a fly-in backpacking trip, a Jökulhlaup (look it up!), and getting to know each other better. Once again, Malia and Andrew said goodbye, as she was moving to Israel to travel and hike for 6 months and he was heading to Ecuador on a long hiking expedition. Well, they stayed in touch and Malia ended up deciding to spend a few months in Italy after finishing her time in Israel. Andrew booked flights. Unfortunately, COVID changed those plans, but Andrew was ready to fly out a week before a full country shut down. Malia ended up flying home early. At this point, there was daily texting and some calling, and big plans were being made to do a 5 day rafting trip together before they started their new jobs. Well, COVID cancelled those, so all of the sudden, time was not a restriction. Malia moved back to Utah to sleep on some future bridesmaids' floors, and join Andrew on her first multi-day rafting trip on the Arkansas river. This trip is now referred to as their "first date". From this point, they were planning trips together non-stop to get through COVID (don't worry, it was in the remote desert). They went to a friends' barbeque and officially started dating the next day. Since then, the relationship has been built on living in 3 different states, long-distance dating, traveling to at least 15 states and 5 countries together, and a lot of love and support. Many of our friends and family have been with us through every step of our relationship and we could not be more grateful for those that joined us along the way.