In January 2022, Brianna was spending time with her friend Maddie in Seattle, and they once again found themselves chatting about this guy named Brian. Brian led Maddie's church’s community group when she was still living in Santa Barbara, and Bri had met him a couple of times at different social functions. Basically, Maddie had wanted Bri to get to know Brian somehow for a while, but Bri had thought it wasn't a great idea because Brian was a lot older than her (14 years older, to be exact). But this time Bri relented. She promised to reach out to Brian somehow by March 15th, Maddie's birthday. So she went online, found Brian's paper "Free Will & Desire", and printed it out and annotated it. She had been reading a book featuring Luther and Erasmus's debate about free will during the Reformation and convinced herself she was purely curious about Brian's philosophical take on free will. She then wrote Brian an e-mail asking if he'd be down to get coffee and talk about the paper, to which he quickly replied in the affirmative. They met at Lighthouse Coffee off Chapala in downtown Santa Barbara on a sunny Saturday afternoon. After a long conversation about free will and how our desires influence our choices, about God and spiritual formation, and about their lives generally, Brian asked Bri if she'd "want to do something sometime, like go on a hike." To which Bri replied "sure!" As Brian left their table, he reiterated his eagerness to get to know her better by saying "I hope we can hang out again soon," to which Bri replied, "Maybe...." Bri was actually just in shock as she had never really been asked out before. She eagerly waited for Brian to text again, but there was radio silence. Brian had taken Bri's "maybe" as rejection. But Bri remembered Brian mentioning a "write night" (a weekly hang out for friends to work on their writing projects) he held at his apartment every Tuesday, so Bri texted him on Tuesday evening and asked if she could come over. Brian, with clear excitement, said yes. Things sort of took off from there. Bri and Brian's first "hike" was a walk at the Douglas Preserve a couple days later, and then a few weeks later they started officially dating. For the next year and 9 months, we’ve been very glad to live only 8 minutes away from each other. A deep friendship grew as we cooked and shared meals (possibly with you, reader!), helped each other with chores, ran together, prayed together as Bri drove to work each morning, and took each other to urgent care. Brian came up to Stockton and got up on the wakeboard (an almost necessary hurdle for Newport approval), and Bri flew to Michigan and had her first experience of fish fry and sub zero temperatures. Bri spent 5 weeks in Warsaw for work in fall 2022, which was hard, but they called every day. What a joy to say that we found each other trustworthy and full of loving kindness in the midst of everything, thanks to God's infinite grace. On December 22, 2023, Brian proposed at the same table at Lighthouse Coffee where we first met up. We are tremendously grateful for your love and support throughout our lives and our relationship so far. We look forward to starting our married life with you on July 6th!!! 😃