We were both invited to our mutual friends’ wedding and seated at the same table. It took a little while, and a few drinks, to ease the nerves, but Shane finally asked me to dance! At this point in the night, we have both had a few drinks and didn’t know where, if anywhere, that this would lead. We left it at exchanging numbers and hoping to keep in touch. We went our separate ways for a while, but a few months later, we went on our first date. We were both nervous and made our mutual friend come along to break the ice and it worked! We made it official on January 31, 2018. We have had ups and downs, like any couple, but we quickly found out that we have a lot in common. We both love traveling, being with family and friends, going out to eat, and many others. In January 2020, we moved into our own place together in New Hampshire. It has come with some challenges, but we found our way through our mutual love and support for eachother. This is the start of our wonderful journey together through this life. We hope to make an eventual move to our favorite state of Maine!

It all started with a beautifully planned weekend in Portland, Maine. Shane had planned for us to enjoy the weekend by the coast in a beautiful hotel room at the Portland Regency Hotel. At first, I thought it was just a regular weekend in Maine, one of our favorite places to visit together. After seeing the beautiful hotel room and how he had planned everything out and surprised me, I was a little suspicious. I asked him if he was going to propose and he said no, that he hadn’t had time to buy a ring yet. We talked about going ring shopping when we returned home. We went to meet Shane’s aunt, uncle, and cousins at one of our favorite lighthouses. I didn’t think anything of this at first because whenever we would visit Maine, we would see his family. Everything started out as a normal visit, we took some pictures of his family in front of the lighthouse with this beautiful background, then it was our turn to have pictures taken. When you see the video, it’s kind of funny. At first, you can see Shane holding me and starting to move to the side and I thought he was just being silly and trying to pull me over or do something funny. But then, he says so Colleen, and I immediately thought he was joking around. But, he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. I said yes! I was so surprised because we had just talked about this, and I was convinced that we were going ring shopping when we returned to New Hampshire. It turns out that he had a plan the entire time and I had no idea, which is pretty normal but I usually catch on to things before they happen. So he had to be really sneaky and he did a great job. After the proposal, his family showered us with confetti and hugs. We then enjoyed a wonderful dinner in Old Port and returned back to our hotel room where we had a surprise of wine and chocolate covered strawberries waiting for us. We were so excited to relax in one of our favorite places together!

After living together for some time, we decided to adopt a dog! In February 2021, we traveled to Maryland to meet and adopt our first baby boy dog, Baxter, who was a 1 year old pitbull mix. It was quite an adventure and we weren’t sure how it would go, but we got Baxter home and started to enjoy our life as a little family of three! Several months later in July 2021, we met one of our biggest and most exciting goals. We moved to Maine! We had been working hard on this goal for quite some time. Shane taking extra hours at work and Colleen setting aside as much money as possible. Through hard work, a little luck, a lot of helping hands, and two uhauls later - we were moving in! As if a new home, new job, unpacking, and organizing wasn’t enough, we decided to adopt yet again in October 2021. This time, a girl dog! We drove to Pennsylvania to meet our second love, Queenie the 1 year old terrier mix. This bundle of energy was the perfect addition to our family and hit it off with Baxter right away. Not only is Queenie the perfect addition, we also felt it was meant to be as Queenie is the nickname of Colleen’s late aunt who passed away in July 2021. For now, our family is complete. We look forward to many cuddles and lots of love as we continue planning our perfect wedding day!