It soars inside my soul because of you.

We were brought together by that wonderful, monstrous thing called the internet. Cassie was finally ready to give it another go after a dozen or so lackluster tries in online dating. Erik had been dabbling a bit already, but he had no idea what was in store for him when he liked a photo from a girl that happened to spend a year at his alma mater. Cassie saw the photo of this cutie with pretty eyes and a great big smile, standing in front of a waterfall, clearly on a hike, and thought, "plus he's from right down the road from where I grew up and even went to Cortland?! I should at least like him back," with a shrug. She was traveling for work with a coworker who was cheering on every last act Cassie took on the dating app, wanting every detail. When Cassie heard from Erik right away and we spent the first night messaging until well past bedtime, she was giddy for the coworker chat to come over breakfast! We messaged on the app throughout each of the coming days, sending good morning and goodnight messages and everything in between, getting to know the details AND the mundane and it just felt easy. Finally one of us got up the nerve to say "let's move this to the phone" and the texting began. We talked about the good, the bad, the ugly, asked all of the easy and many of the hard questions. It was clear we were both ready to figure out if this was worth more time. Sure enough once we set our first date, for nearly two weeks out since we were both traveling when we first met, Cassie, who was still playing the field on the app (you just never know when one will stick!) told the other guy she was having a pretty good connection with, "I'm sorry, but this other conversation is really moving along, we have a date set, and things seem really promising. I just want to be honest and I feel like I should see where this goes." Our first date was at Olde Mecklenburg Brewery, or OMB, in Charlotte, where we enjoyed a gorgeous early Spring evening outside until it got dark and the colder air chased us indoors. We talked and nervous laughed all night, sharing more commonalities than we could've ever imagined (we even wore the same cologne/perfume, but the for him and for her versions on the date!) and were already both thinking of date number two. We kept texting through Cassie's travel, told more deep thoughts and asked more deep questions. When Erik's kids were with him for the weekend, Cassie was sure their second date wouldn't be until the following week, except when she said she was meeting friends at another brewery that Friday night and Erik said "I want to come!" The kids were doing their own thing and Ethan was tasked with keeping his eye on Ella for a couple of hours while Erik went to Charlotte. He took Cassie's friends by surprise when he walked up and Cassie said something along the lines of "so yeah, this is a guy I'm dating!" We were so sure at that point that this was going somewhere that Erik said "should we do this thing?" We spent as much time as we could together in between Erik's nights and weekends with his kids, Cassie's travel, and all of our other plans and continued to get closer and closer. When Cassie first met Ella at the Whitewater Center in Charlotte, Ella may or may not have caught us sneaking a kiss and asked "Is that your girlfriend now?" with a smile. And when she met Ethan, she most definitely tried too hard but at least he seemed to like her dog and her friends enough to give her another chance. In no time we were doing group camping trips with the kids and friends and dogs and were pretty fully immersed in each other's lives. In one slightly tipsy moment on the back of a golf cart just a few months in, Erik might've let it slip that "I think I want to marry you one day." Erik kept Cassie hanging for a good while after that to actually pop the question, but now here we are! :)