our adventure begins

Freshman year of college in fall of 2009, we met once at Saginaw Valley State University. Chelsea was living with Paul's old high school friends. We never ran into each other again, until we both moved to Colorado. Chelsea moved to Colorado in the summer of 2015 and Paul moved to Colorado in the winter of 2015. We realized through social media that we both moved here and decided to meet up for music video bingo. Little did we know at the time, we both had transferred to Michigan State University and graduated the same year! Paul lived up in the mountains, while Chelsea lived in Denver. Despite living over an hour away, Paul made sure he came down to Denver multiple times a week to see Chelsea. A month later we started dating. In April, Paul moved to Denver. Today, we own a house in Denver and have two puppies Izzo and Cedar.

Months before Paul had even planned to propose, he and Chelsea had booked flights back to Michigan to attend the Michigan State vs. Iowa football game. The closer it got, Paul knew he wanted to propose and decided this would be the perfect time. Having only met Chelsea's dad a handful of times, since he lives in Michigan, Paul had to first decide how he was going to ask for his permission. After Paul had many motivational phone conversations with friends and some liquid courage, he decided to text her mom (didn't have her dad's number) and ask if they had a moment to talk. After an hour or two of anxiously waiting, they responded and Paul went ahead and called them. At first it was the typical small talk "oh, hey, how are you" and "good, how are you". Then phone finally went off speaker and it was just her dad on the other end. (I'm sure her dad knew exactly why Paul was calling as his voice changed from his mature deep 26 year old voice to a puberty changing squeal with chattering teeth-as if he was standing outside in a cold January winter in Michigan.) After a few of what seemed like golf balls being swallowed, Paul finally muscled up the words "I wanted to ask for your permission to marry your daughter". Chelseas dad responded with "absolutely"!!! One of Paul's best men (Adam) had proposed a few months ago to his fiancé Jess out in Colorado. Paul had a great idea of having Adam ask if we would get to campus early before people arrived for tailgating and take engagement pictures of them. Paul played it off as if he didn't want to because they would have to get up even earlier so Chelsea wouldn't have any idea. Once game day rolled around, we headed to campus with Mitch and Hannah to meet Adam and Jess. We walked around campus and started taking pictures for Adam and Jess. Then it was our turn. We took a few pictures, then Paul got down on one knee and said "will you marry me"....and she said "YES"!!!