We met the most exciting way possible: online. Both of us had been online for a little while, but we'd taken a bit of a break before jumping back in on October 17th. I saw Brendan's profile during my lunch break at work and was intrigued by our common interests (skiing, writing fiction, hiking) and his apparent sense of humour, and thus promptly sent him a message asking if he'd like to "connect." Brendan, upon reading the message, wondered if he'd accidentally opened his LinkedIn account, but he saw a picture of me with a sheep and was hooked. We chatted for a few days via messages before Brendan invited me to a hot chocolate cafe -- he remembered from a single mention that I don't like coffee. We met on October 22nd and talked until the cafe closed, then took a walk down near Green Lake before Brendan escorted me back to my car. He won major points by walking on the street side during our walk, speaking passionately about his faith (especially his Consecration to St. Joseph), having a witty sense of humour, and opening the car door for me. It was, without a doubt, the best date I'd ever been on.

We went on exactly three more dates after our first meeting before Brendan decided to ask me out: we had a lovely walk and chilly picnic at the Arboretum, went to our first mass together at the UW Newman Center (where we ran into quite a few of my friends who were all very excited to see me with a very handsome, very kind, very tall gentleman), and a nice dinner in Kirkland. At the latter, Brendan asked me if I'd like to make things exclusive, and I was more than happy to agree. (I think he was impressed by me memorizing the territories and provinces of Canada between then and the Arboretum date.) Before the evening ended, though, Brendan proved to have a few more tricks up his sleeve. In the parking garage of the Bellevue Mall, he said he could already see himself marrying me. Then, as we were saying goodbye, I couldn't help myself, and I kissed his hand. He went down on one knee and in turn kissed my hand, then stood up and gave me a very sweet goodnight kiss. I smiled all the way home.

The winter months flew by, with Brendan's crash course introduction to the Lande and Reed families at Thanksgiving, lots of ferry rides to Vashon (including for Brendan's first sheep deworming adventure), a journey over the mountains to the Methow Valley for skiing and shooting, a lovely visit from Brendan's parents, a trip to Deception Pass, many Sunday Masses and evening adorations, Zoom calls with Brendan's family, tourist jaunts in Seattle and Bellevue (with lots of miles driven back and forth), and Brendan coming all the way up to visit me on Shaw Island during my retreat week. As spring arrived, so did the promise of another trip together: Wassaw Island with my parents and some extended family. Unbeknownst to me, though perhaps with some slight suspicion, Brendan had been preparing for this trip since it was initially suggested in November for the purpose of proposing. He kept it top secret and had me very well convinced it would happen anywhere else but there. On Easter morning, before heading into Savannah for Easter Sunday Mass, we biked down to the beach to watch the sunrise. We took a walk down the beach a little ways, and Brendan launched into a very sweet summary of our relationship thus far, as well as a litany of compliments about me. He finally stopped after a few minutes and asked me if I remembered our first kiss, which, as you may remember, consisted of me kissing his hand, him then getting down on one knee and kissing my hand, and then him standing up to kiss me. I affirmed that I did and kissed his hand. He got down on one knee to kiss mine, but instead of standing back up to kiss me, he pulled out a ring box and asked me to marry him. I was broken-hearted that it wasn't on the Jumbotron at a baseball game, but he seemed very sincere, so I was more than happy to say yes. (I then proceeded to absolutely cry my eyes out from overwhelming joy.)