We both were selected to be a part of the Student Leader Fellowship Program while attending Northern Michigan University in 2013. To kick off the program, in the fall of that year, they took all the student leaders to a retreat hosted at a campground on Lake Superior. For 2 days we participated in ice-breakers and team building activities. Brook swears it was seeing Alisha's crazy blonde hair to know that we were meant to be, but it took being in the same 2-credit leadership class that we got to know each other and the crushing (towards each other) began! The following year, we got to work on the same staff, being employed by the Housing & Residence Life department as Community Advisors, where we oversaw apartment complexes lived in by students... coincidently, our apartment's neighbored each other. We got to spend time together in and out of staff meetings, most frequently cooking dinners together and watching movies. Alisha knew a hell of a lot more about cooking meals than Brook, we both enjoyed watching movies.. Brook got to be fed, and we got to sit on a couch and be tormented about whether we were ~just friends~ or not... win, win.. I guess?! Graduation came for both of us in 2015-2016, which brought new chapters for us in different ways. Even though Alisha moved around the east coast for a bit, and Brook remained in Michigan, we always made it a point to keep in touch, and get together whenever our paths crossed for a beer or a cup of coffee. Ya know.. as friends. Fast forward to March 2020, when COVID hit and the world hit pause for a while... Brook, living in Detroit, decided to reach out to Alisha, who was living in Missoula, Montana. Since we were both stuck at home for an unknown amount of time, Brook suggested catching up on Facetime over coffee.... a long distance coffee date, if you will. And it didn't take much for those familiar sparks to re-ignite, as they always did. That coffee date turned into a bi-weekly, then tri-weekly routine. And it wasn't long before we were talking everyday, trying to figure out how to navigate a pandemic together, while a few thousand miles apart. Vaccinated and masked, we flew to each other, Brook to Montana in May and Alisha to Detroit in July and it was unmistakable that we were meant to be. By August, Alisha packed up her apartment and moved to the Detroit area, and by November we decided to move in together. Life has a crazy way of working out, because come April 2021, a job opportunity would allow us to move (again!) back to the place where it all started... on the shores of Lake Superior.

We realized in our moved back to Marquette, that we had both individually moved 11 times in between 2016 to 2021. Thankfully, we packed up and moved for the last time (for the foreseeable future) to our first home in October 2022! Settled just about mile from Lake Superior in Chocolay Township (outskirts of Marquette proper), we bought a house on Kawbawgam Road. Fisher, Brook and I are happy to have a place of our own with a big yard that backs up to a network of trails, that is within 8 minutes of the Chocolay Fire Department, where Brook is a volunteer firefighter, and that's not far from Alisha's family. Marquette has always been such a special place for both of us, and we are so happy to call it home again! We will be especially grateful to share it with those that also remember it as a former home, or those who've not visited before, come September!!