It was the summer of 2019, at the Kalamazoo Nature Center. We were both counselors for the summer, and we were both made counselors of a similar age group (thank you for that Tanequa 😜). So, the rest of the summer was spent working together pretty much everyday. Our friend group from that summer also spent a lot of time together outside of work, so we just developed a fun, reliable, and trusting friendship over those 3 months and beyond. Eventually, with a wee bit of liquid courage, we confessed our quiet but passionate crushes for each other on New Year’s Day 2020. A few days later, Clayton officially asked Nathalie to be his girlfriend. And the rest is the beginning of their history.

Clayton’s POV: August 2019 - I met up with Nathalie at the school where she was setting up her first classroom in Holland. After she showed me her classroom, we went thrifting, ate some hot dogs then some hop cat fries. Pretty chill. P.S. Nathalie refuses to acknowledge this as our first date. (Because we didn’t even know we liked each other yet!-Nat) Nathalie’s POV: January 2020- We started dating in January 2020 therefore this is our REAL FIRST DATE. We were currently working at winter camp at the nature center and had just celebrated new years together with some of our summer camp friends at his house with his roomies at the time (fun fact: our first kiss happened during that night lol). We agreed to go on our first date after work. We went to taco bobs in downtown Kalamazoo, walked around the Kalamazoo mall and played Pokémon go. It was very wholesome and cute.

Clayton’s POV: Hello Friends and Family. The day I asked Nathalie to marry me was probably the most insane day of my life. In all ways that are amazing and spectacular, the day Nathalie said yes will always be a day in my life I’ll look back on and wonder how everything worked out so incredibly perfect. I’m just going to tell you about the moment of our engagement and onward. However, The 24 hours before this could not have been anymore perfect or clutch. I’m not kidding. This was the craziest sequence of things going right for me in my life. Please ask me for the full story! I wish I could include every detail of what happened but for the sake of attention spans I’ll try and keep this short and sweet for now. Nathalie and I are on our way to her parents house for the night as they are about to fly out to El Salvador in the early morning. On the drive up, I can tell she expected something to happen prior to this, and when there was nothing, she did appear to be let down. Nevertheless, I knew the ring in my pocket would cheer her up shortly. During the drive up, I tried thinking ahead about what I wanted to say, and as we got closer and closer I still didn’t have a clue. We arrive and immediately Nathalie is suspicious. She points out how all the house lights are out, and asks why her sisters just took her bags and ran back to the house. Before she can question anything else, I hurry her up the stairs for a special question of my own. As we enter the house we’re greeted by a beautiful aisle of rose petals and candles. Shout out to Rebeca and Saraí! After making it through the pretty scene, it was finally time to ask her to be my wife. I was barely able to get the words out of my mouth, but I did it! Fortunately for me she said yes, and soon after we were surrounded by her family. Nathalie’s POV: So, I was mad. And sad. I had told Clayton that if he wanted to propose before the end of the year, I really would prefer it be before my parents left to El Salvador. Welp. The night before my parents were leaving had come, and no proposal. I had even dressed up a little extra to work that day in case it was happening when I came home that day. It didn’t. We packed up to go to my parents house because they were leaving at around 4AM or something like that. We packed up the Olive Garden my mom had asked for as her last meal in the U.S. for a bit. And I’m fuming internally the whole ride there. Clayton is being so chill, and I’m like omg this guy. (He’s so great about being chill in chaos. It’s the best. ❤️) We get to Wayland, my sisters come out to help us get the pets in and all our clothes, and the food. I make a comment about how dark the house the looks. We walk up the stairs. I’m literally about to take my shoes off, wondering why it’s so quiet, and I open the door from the mud room into the living space. And there it is…a line of candles, Clayton looking at me, me not properly registering what’s happening. I walk down the line of candles to a heart outlined in candles in the middle of the living room. (I know!!!! Straight out of a movie!!!!) We get in the middle of the heart, Clayton, the random guy I met during a summer job that I thought would be a blip in my resume, gets down on one knee, and he asks me to marry him. I said no. But then he really convinced me when he showed me the box of ferror rocher chocolates. Jk jk. I said yes (the first time haha 😉)