We first met in junior high, circa 2006. I attended WMS and Connor attended Central Grade School, both in Washington, and rivals in everything! It was not love at first sight, in fact we did not show any real chemistry in one another until, go figure, Chemistry class sophomore year, circa 2008. Between learning about chemical reactions and reading "How to Kill a Mockingbird" in English, we became infatuated with one another, after two years of friendship. I was actually the first one to "make a move" by asking him to our Vice Versa dance sophomore year. In fact, it was not until Junior Prom until Connor asked me to a school dance. We went to three Vice Versa's, two Proms, and one homecoming. Senior year homecoming we were on homecoming court together! We successfully made it through high school and ended up going to Indiana State together. Luckily Connor had the football team and I had my sorority sisters to keep us both busy. Many people don't know but Connor and I spent the first two and a half years only seeing each other on the weekends because of our hectic schedules. I did not miss a single football game of his, whether I was at the game or watching on a crappy quality computer screen, I saw every single play. (and that I am thinking about it, I think I saw every high school game of his too, because what else was there to do in high school on a Friday night?!) After graduating, Connor moved to Colorado and I went back to Washington, which started our year and a half long distance relationship-which was harder than we both thought it would be. We started a tradition our first Valentine's apart to meet in Chicago for a weekend getaway. February 10th, 2017 was when our new chapter started! Engagement life-living three states away!

The love side of our story all started sophomore year English class. We were placed into a project together for the book “To Kill A Mockingbird”. During this project we spent many nights together, which is when I first started to fall for my love. We were only in a few classes together in high school, but that didn't stop us from seeing each other. Since we were in a project together for English, we decided to do group work together in Chemistry. I don’t really remember the projects that we were working on, I just remember the moments we spent together telling our parents that we were doing “homework”. My fondest memory with Jenn before we officially started dating came sophomore year. Jennica, Ben Weston and I were in a Chemistry project together and had planned to come to my house and work on one night. We ended up not doing any work on the project and getting in the hot tub instead. We completely lost track of time and before we knew it, it was 2 in the morning. Time really flies when you’re with the ones you love. Ben and I ended up walking Jennica back to her house that night because none of us had our license yet. As Ben and I were walking back to my house after dropping Jenn off we talked about how amazing the night was. However, I assumed Jenn did not have nearly as good of a time as I did because she did not call or text me back the rest of that weekend. That worried me a little bit until we arrived to school on Monday to find out Brian had taken her phone away when she got home that night! Our love story continued through the rest of high school and into college at Indiana State. We have been through a lot of amazing and tough times together. She was my biggest supporter all through college, never missing a single game of mine. Since college, we have both moved out to Colorado and have enjoyed the city life. She is getting me into running and I am getting her into video games! We enjoy snowboarding, hiking and trying new things out here in Colorado!

We have never really been a Valentine's Day kind of couple. No gifts, no extra emotion, nothing special. But since we were living in different states we had started a tradition of meeting in Chicago for the weekend. February 10th, 2017 was our weekend. I picked Conn up at the airport and had plans to get brunch and go to the Lincoln Park Zoo. Unfortunately it was a little colder than I had expected and several brunch places we tried were completely packed, so we ended up grabbing coffee from Starbucks. I had told Jenn that we were not going to be able to check in to our hotel until after 3, and that I had plans to go to the Aquarium and Field Museum to pass time. Little did Jenn know, I had asked Kristen, Jennica's best friend from high school, to help me set our hotel room for my surprise proposal. Jenn had no idea! We went to the aquarium only to find out they weren't letting anyone in because of a systems problem, so we went to the Field Museum. After only a couple minutes, I was saved by Kristen's phone call informing me she was done with the room. I told Jenn our room was ready early so we headed to the hotel! We stayed at the BlackSmith Hotel near Magnificent Mile in downtown. We had a hard time finding the hotel because of construction and after 20 minutes we finally found the hotel. After getting our keys we made it to our door only to find that neither of them worked. Conn lacks patience and during the whole day he was very calm until this point. He started getting flustered and freaking out. Luckily there was a manager on the floor who was able to help us out. Once the door was open, Connor told me to close my eyes because he had a surprise for me. I do not like surprises, but this is one that I was more than grateful for! He had Kristen decorate the room with rose petals, candles and tulips (my favorite flower). To make things even better, he made dinner reservations and surprised me with both our parents and friends being there to help us celebrate!