I have always found it difficult to answer the how did you meet question without launching into a full story dating back to 2005. With last names close together in the alphabet I would assume we started 6th grade on out with lockers close to each other. I also like to always mention that he was a little too "popular" for me - as I was the girl that went to classes early just to sit and read a book. We had the occasional class together over those 7 years of school and knowing him I bet he held the door open for me on more than one occasion. Fast forward to two years post college. I was living in Nashville working as a nurse at Vanderbilt when an instagram message popped up on my phone from a boy I went to high school with asking about the snow conditions in Colorado where I had just spent a long weekend. I flew up to Chicago a few weeks later to visit friends and to go out on a date with Connor. He took me to his favorite restaurant Folklore and then to a piano bar after. We were officially dating long distance a month after that first date. ~Cassandra

It’s funny because I could say we really met on our first date out in Chicago, technically met in middle school, or an unknown meeting at the many places our paths crossed prior. We’re still discovering common places like vacation bible schools we shared together as kids or maybe her brother Cooper’s baseball games held at the same spot I played for example. What finally got things going was me unable to not reach out to an incredible girl. Online she had pictures skiing and hiking Colorado, her in nursing scrubs next to a Vanderbilt helicopter, and her slaloming at a lake house near my family’s. Absolutely my kind of girl. Finally after reconnecting I had the opportunity to take her out in Chicago. We dated long distance from Chicago to Nashville, then definitely close distance with all quarantine in Elmhurst, and now with 2 huskies and a house in Naperville together.