It all started in Grade 10, on the bus ride home from a basketball tournament in Winnipeg. Two teens, same phone, same Pokémon game, and one very fragile calculator. Holden offered to “help” me with math homework and somehow ended up breaking my calculator — but apparently that was the start of forever. Who would have guessed? From there, sports (and maybe a little too much competitiveness) became our thing. Most people didn’t quite get it, but we understood each other. A starting point guard and a QB1? Definitely a match made in heaven.

Holden had been secretly planning the engagement for months. While I was away coaching a basketball tournament in Medicine Hat, upset that I was spending valentines day weekend with 14 year old boys, he went ring shopping in Regina with Sara and David. At first, the shops thought Holden and Sara were a couple, but once they clarified they were ring hunting for me, they managed to find the perfect one — on Valentine’s Day weekend, no less. We’d had a ski trip to Banff planned since the November before, and little did I know, the other three already knew what was coming. At the start of our hike in Johnston Canyon, Sara asked if she and David could get a picture on the bridge. Then Holden suggested we should also get a photo. That’s when he dropped to one knee. I immediately blacked out, somehow said yes, held my hands upside down for the ring (thanks to David for pointing that out), and the rest is a blur. To top it off, not a single person stopped on the bridge to congratulate us — and a man with his dog walked right through our photo! I guess he knew we don’t exactly love being the center of attention.