I was studying Visual Arts and he was studying Business and Finance, and playing baseball for Susquehanna University. For all four years of college, we knew of each other but didn't officially meet until after I came back from studying abroad in South Africa. We were friends for a while before he had the guts to finally ask me out to dinner, and we started dating after I graduated college. After four years of long-distance and a healthy dose of traveling from New Jersey and Pennsylvania, we finally moved in with each other in Morristown, New Jersey where we currently live. This makes a grand total of six years and counting...

I set up a "birthday getaway", just the two of us (wink) to do as much traveling as we could during Covid. After a nice dinner and glamping at East Wind in Windham, NY the night before, we went for a hike on Saturday morning. We made the 15-minute drive to Plattekill Falls in Hunter, NY, and were on our way. The hike was fantastic for the first 45 minutes, but then I began to get antsy as I was reallllly struggling to find the falls. We found the falls alright but were above them. Emily looks down and sees a "wildlife photographer", as she called her. Really it was the photographer, I contracted to capture the moment. She's been waiting for us to arrive for nearly an hour, so when I saw her and figured out what I needed to do, I booked it down the mountain while Emily was trying to enjoy the hike, stop and take pictures, etc. We finally get down to the base of the falls and I hand my phone to the photographer and ask her to take a picture of us in front of the falls (I don't do that, so that's when she knew). We jump from rock to rock until we get into position, I stutter over a few words and drop to a knee - the first surprise was a success! After exchanging happy calls with immediate family members, we went to "lunch" a short drive away where some of our friends were waiting (at a rented Airbnb) to surprise and celebrate with us through the night.