We met at an international travel session during grad school orientation. We were both starting our dual degree programs and found ourselves in the same cohort, the same study groups, the same game nights. Our mutual friends began betting on when we would get together. It only took a month, and we started dating. Though, Courtney was so apprehensive about getting seriously involved, she asked for dates to be called "outings". Back and forth between messy single apartments, "outings" that doubled as exam prep, and a graduate school experience entirely tinted with new love.

It was a month after our sixth anniversary, September had begun in its magical way. The air was crisp, vermilion and crimson leaves skittered across pavement, and the cool nights welcomed fires and warm drinks. Jazmyn had planned a weekend away in the mountains, a cozy cabin alongside a creek in Idaho Springs. On our first morning there, Jazmyn made breakfast and handed me a bound book, blank apart from a love letter on the first page. The letter ended with a "And I can't wait to marry you." I looked over the edge of the book and Jazmyn was kneeling on one knee.

Courtney planned our first anniversary date. She took me to a hot air balloon festival at the Bloomington County fairgrounds. I told her the story about my parents taking my brother and to the county fair when we were little and seeing the hot air balloons and how I had loved seeing them all up in the air at once. Courtney returned to this magic and planned a trip for us to go to the hot air balloon festival in Albuquerque. We woke up at 4:30am on October 13th to go see the mass launch where all the balloons take off within minutes of each other. I was excitedly pulling Courtney towards the balloons when she told me she had one more thing to do before we go watch the launch. I turned around to ask her what could possibly be better than the balloons right. over. there. I should have known. I turned around and Courtney was on one knee asking me to marry her.