We started working together in the Surgical ICU at Mayo Clinic in the spring of 2020. Joseph worked nightshift and I was dayshift. I first noticed Joseph because of his Michigan ID badge reel while giving him report on our first shift exchange. I excitedly said "oh my gosh, are you from Michigan?! So am I! " To which he responded, "no, just a Michigan fan... I'm from Ohio". I thought what the heck - who does that? Nobody from Ohio likes Michigan... or is it the other way around? Fast forward to approximately 2 years after developing a strong friendship and giving each other heck at work during shift handoff... and then even on our days off (he's pretty funny). After all that time, Joseph finally asked me out and my response was basically, "I'm busy right now, maybe next month." I really was busy and out of town, but what Joseph heard was "I'm not interested." He still to this day will refer to that as "the time when you hated me." So... he stopped texting, talking to, or picking on me. I finally texted "what the heck - I haven't heard from you in like 48 hours, it's weird and I don't like it". We went on their first date a few days later on June 1st and after dating for a short while, we both felt a "when you know, you know" moment. We already knew each other so well through a long and fun (sarcastic) relationship and we were excited to start our lives together... with Joseph's cat Nemo. He had been a single cat dad for seven years, but despite Nemo's displeasure, I have (very) slowly become her mom. We moved into our first townhome together on October 20th, 2022, and we went on our first vacation to Mexico, and on December 2nd, where Joseph proposed. In early January, Joseph started pursuing his DNP in Nurse Anesthesiology degree at the University of North Florida. And, we just recently found out that I'll be starting the same nurse anesthesiology program this coming January. Back to school full time for both of us, but we're excited to take this next step in our careers. Because Nemo isn't one bit interested in me lovin on her (or even looking her way, really), we just adopted a kitten and named him Scout. He's a fun, cuddly, sweet, but crazy kitten, and Nemo is adapting as expected... not really.