Maddy and I reconnected at Mortimer's in Uptown at a friend's birthday party. We had so much fun, due to my location in Pierre I never thought a long term relationship would work and I forgot to grab her phone number. The following two weekends, Maddy traveled to Puerto Rico and I went on a ski trip. She found ways to contact me without my phone number everyday during that two weeks. After our vacations she invited me to make the 8 hour trek back to Minneapolis. That was the start of a year of 8 hour drives every Friday and Sunday between the two of us. Maddy enjoyed life on the farm, so after a year of dating she quit her job and moved out in hopes of finding a remote position (those didn't really exist in 2019). After finding a job and settling in for two months the company I worked for folded. Homeless and newly roommates, we bounced around living in Brainerd, Uptown, and Chanhassen while looking for a home. A home is hard to find when your specs are acreage, ability to have farm animals, close to the cities, and cheap. After an arduous 18 month house hunt we found our farm. With the home purchase out of the way, the pressure was now put on me to make it official. I valiantly held out for 15 months but amid surmounting pressure from all sides I could not bare explaining why we weren't engaged at another Christmas. So here we are.