Steph and I met in middle school where we both knew of each other but were in different grades, so we never really talked to each other. The first time we really spoke was during a Corps of Discovery trip to Canada. After that, we added each other on Snapchat and started messaging often and became pretty good friends. My freshman year of high school, I asked her to be my date to homecoming, and she surprisingly said yes! We grew even closer after that and talked just about every day, but we never dated... My sophomore year I was planning on asking Steph to homecoming again after flubbing the initial opportunity to date her the year prior (lol). She ended up going to the dance with someone else, which was fine, but I was still pretty bummed out because I flubbed the opportunity again, at least I thought I did. Then, a few weeks after the dance, a few of the guys and I went out to Applebee's to get some post-game food and were conveniently sat across the aisle from Steph and her friends. A couple of awkward waves and smiles shared between the two of us and that was pretty much all that happened, until Steph left the table and one of our mutual friends had scooted her chair over to me and looked at me like I was stupid and said, "You know she still likes you right?!" After she told me that, it took me all of until later that night to start messaging Steph again to get closer to her because my feelings towards her hadn't changed since we went to homecoming the year prior... I was crushing hard, and I knew that I couldn't flub it up a third time. We started talking again more consistently and we were also having movies nights at her place at least once a week before we officially started dating. Then, on December 2nd, 2016, we went to Leavenworth to walk around the town and hang out together. We ended up going back to my parents' house and watching movies and I FINALLY asked her to be my girlfriend. Fast forward eight years later, and we were on our way into Leavenworth to go out to dinner and walk around for our eight-year anniversary. The entire drive there, all throughout dinner and walking down by the shops, I had to make sure that Steph couldn't see the peculiar cube shape sticking out from inside my coat pocket. I then asked her if she wanted to go over to take some pictures in front of the tree that we took pictures at eight years prior. After that, I asked her if she wanted to go take some pictures in the gazebo in the center of town. As we stood there for a couple of minutes, I put my arm around her and told her how much I love her and how much she means to me, and I couldn't ask for a better person to be with. I then reached into my pocket, took out the little box I had been hiding in there the whole night and told Steph, "I know we said we wouldn't worry about getting each other gifts, but I got you this." That is when I got down on one knee and popped the question and my parents and her family came out from behind the gazebo to take pictures and congratulate us. Eight years later, in the same place where it all started, with the same girl I have been in love with since I was a sophomore in high school, and have grown to love more and more every single day, I am now closer than ever to realizing my biggest dream of getting to call her my wife.