Once upon a time, I(Kayla) drove my mom's mini van to Tommie Johnnie and this guy got into my sweet ride. Our friend groups slowly merged until we were talking almost every day as best friends. Then, he tried to ruin it and asked me out...I said no. I didn't want to ruin an amazing friendship. After a summer of flirting, country music, and drinking, he tried again. Well, I said no again. Once junior year started, I realized he was the first one I wanted to talk to when something special happened and someone I always wanted to be around. So, one night, I decided to tell him how I felt. He told me to tell him how I felt again when I was sober. Classic Jeremiah. One month later, we were officially dating and we are now living happily ever after. During Kayla’s and my relationship, we have this tradition of writing letters to each other on our anniversary every month. I learned that Kayla loves getting letters and writing them even more. I knew early on that she was the love of my life and wanted to secretly show that I knew early. Starting on our fifth month anniversary, I would start each letter I wrote with a letter of the phrase “Will you marry me?”. For example, our fifth month anniversary letter started with the letter “W”, the sixth months started with “I” in the word "Indeed", and so on. On our 19th month anniversary, the week before we graduated from St. Thomas, we went to some of our most memorable spots. We started at Minnehaha Falls; our first date. Then went to the Stonearch Bridge where I asked Kayla to be my girlfriend. Finally, we went to St. Thomas where her sisters had set up a picnic for us overlooking the Mississippi. I then gave her my letter with only a question mark on it. She was kind of suspicious but I then pulled out every letter in the past 14 months which she had saved (and I stole). I had highlighted the first letter of each note to her and had them in order. I then got down on one knee and asked her to marry me. She obviously said yes!

Together, we’ve learned so much about each other and are falling more in love every day. We are so blessed to have all of you in our lives and can’t wait to celebrate our love with you. Get ready for Kayla’s rowdy family and Jeremiah’s weird obsession with Thunderstruck!