We met at Andy’s fraternity house the first weekend of my freshman year of college. I know how that sounds, but it was the last place I thought I would be! I was nervous, but lucky enough to see a familiar face (Victoria Griffin) and sat down to talk with her on the staircase. One after the other, members of this fraternity started to gather on the stairs behind us, and what started off as a casual conversation between two friends turned into a full on debate over whether or not cheerleading was a sport. On that staircase is where I met Andy, sitting all the way at the top, a beer in one hand and a splint on the other. Even though he was sitting furthest away from me, I managed to ask him a simple question through all the bickering. “Hey... what happened to your hand.” And that’s how our friendship started! In an old fraternity house, on a dirty staircase, with a pointless question.

After almost five and a half years of dating, planning almost any kind of surprise without the other one of us figuring it out was a difficult task. However, I can honestly say that Andy caught me off guard with this one! On my birthday, our friends Nicolette and Pete had told us they couldn’t make it up to celebrate because they were going to be away for the weekend. To make it up to me she said Andy and I should go see them in Sebago the following weekend. That was the last I heard about it until the day before when Andy reminded me. The next day before we left for sebago, Andy was asking me if I just wanted to hang out by the lake for the day or go on a small hike. At this point, a proposal wasn’t even on my mind. If he’s giving me options, he clearly doesn’t have any big plans for the day, right? Well of course I was wrong, because once we finally got to the top of the mountain and I was trying to catch my breath and chug whatever was left of the water I had, Andy says “hey Cass, can you do me favor”. Fully expecting him to ask me some silly question like “can you hold my sunglasses” or “will you move out of the way” I rolled my eyes and turned around to ask him what he needed, and there he was on one knee. I’ve got to say, he’s got me beat with all this surprise stuff.