While our high schools were an hour apart, our swim teams had the same district meet. Ben asked my teammate who "that Rowan girl" was, and eventually our teammates convinced us to snapchat each other. Ben's and my first date was Prom 2018. After that we spent a couple summer days together doing a triathlon, running, mountain biking, and spending lots of time by the lake. When the sweet days of summer were over, Ben left for college in California never to be seen again...or so I thought. To my delight, he continued to answer my snapchats, and we stayed friends until we started dating after my freshman year in Vermont. We knew we might get married when we never got sick of each other on a 14-day camping road trip across the US. After years of CA-VT distance, we finally created a home together in the fall of 2022. Ben proposed March 9, 2024 and now we'll never have to say bye and sob on a plane again! (Both photos on this page are by Maria Angelica Photography.)