Our story... Nick and I did not meet traditionally. We did not meet at school, at the park, at the store, etc. It was in 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit the world. It was summer and I was taking summer classes at Hope College virtually at my moms house in Illinois. For years my friends were trying to get me on an online dating profile and I finally broke when COVID hit the world. My thoughts were “well I’m not going to meet anyone now.” I went to two different dating sites and made profiles on and after three days of nothing, Nick Katzenbach matched with on match.com. He was the first and only guy who took an interest on me. We started talking through messenger at all hours of the day and night, I think we talked for 48 hours straight before we were like WE NEED SLEEP! Haha Then we started talking on the phone, and then FaceTime after that. Before we decided to meet Nick told me that he almost passed because I was in Illinois at first, but when he learned that I was only there for the summer and that I actually lived in Michigan he was all in. We finally meet in person on June 6, 2020 in Gas Light Village in East Grand Rapids, Michigan to see if we wanted to start this beautiful relationship. After a long walk around the village, we took a seat on a bench by the water and that when he asked me if I wanted to take a chance on him.

It was Valentine’s Day evening, we dropped off our daughter with Her grandmother and then went home to have a Home dinner made by me. I lit candles and even dim the lights. After our home cooked meal we bundled up and headed to Nick‘s brother, Robbie’s memorial bench in downtown Muskegon in a nice little park. It was raining a little bit so we went and sat under the Gazebo that was only a couple steps away from his brothers bench. I sat down and looked up at Nick, he was shivering because it was so cold outside so I asked him if he wanted to go into the truck and talk and exchange gifts and he said yes so we made our way back to the truck and turn the heat on. When seated I opened up a piece of paper that I ripped out of a notebook where I wrote out front and back a note to read to him. I have enough room I’d write down what I said to him but will keep that between him and I. All I will say is there were times in my letter to him that made him laugh a lot. Near the end of my letter is when I asked him i wanted our adventures to turn into forever adventures. So after two years eight months seven days or 32 months or 983 days, however you want to count it, I asked Nick Scott Katzenbach to do me the honor in marrying me and becoming my forever home.