Evan and I met towards the tail end of our sophomore year of college. We both went to Providence College in Providence, Rhode Island. He's originally from the state, and as for me, well I'm from the city of good neighbors. Good ol' Buffalo, NY! At the time, I didn't even know who he was until my roommate came home one day and said "Evan Bolton asked me to military ball!"! I love getting dolled up to attend a fancy event, so of course I offered to help her get ready for the dance. Leading up to it, Evan started showing up at our dorm room more often. Naturally a friendship started to blossom between the two of us. Fast forward to junior year, my same roommates and I moved dorms and we ended up down the hall from Evan and his roommates. Since both of our friend groups became so close the year prior, we would always visit each others rooms before going out. During Columbus Weekend that year, I had to stay on campus. My swim coach scheduled mandatory practices that weekend. I swam on the Providence College Swimming & Diving Team. Luckily, Evan was also staying on campus. I had invited him over for a movie night. We started talking and realized we both shared the same feelings towards one another! He asked me to military ball that year, and well, the rest is history!

On New Years Eve my family decided to go down to Ellicottville, NY. That morning Evan had to work, so my dad and I decided to meet up with my sister and nephews at Holiday Valley to get a couple of runs in before it was time for dinner. The plan was to ski for a few hours with my dad, Evan was to meet me after work, he and I would ski for another few hours, and then go back to my sisters house for dinner. My dad hadn't skied in a few years, so he was pretty excited. We were just about to go on our final run (before Evan showed up), when all of a sudden my dad skis over a patch of ice, goes flying into the air, and lands on his hip! I immediately called ski patrol for help. My dad had to be taken down hill on a stretcher and placed in a wheelchair. My mom kept me asking me questions about the fall, I was crying because I thought I broke my dad, Evan was trying to console me, and ski patrol was just trying to evaluate the damage. My mom advised Evan and I to go ski some runs (since he came all this way) and then meet back at my sisters. I immediately put my goggles on and walked away. Evan and I probably did 3 runs in total. On our final run (Cindy's Run), I was far in front of Evan. He yells out to me "Leia something is wrong with my boot, you need to come help me". Both frustrated and annoyed, I turned around and shimmied my way over to him. He goes "take off your ski, I need you to step on this". As I was looking down he gets down on one knee. His first sentence to me was "I wanted you to end 2019 on a good note. Will you marry me?". After a few minutes of crying, I finally said YES!