We're getting married!

On our first date, we went to a ramen place in downtown Minneapolis. Jacob was new to the area and therefore unfamiliar with parking. His frazzled self was about 10 minutes late. While I was sitting there, I remember texting Patrick asking if I should stay or just leave. I'm so happy I stayed! Jacob came through sweating, frazzled, and handsome. We hugged and I remember thinking, "Ok, great, he's sweaty so I'm off the hook for needing to seem like I have my crap together." After about a second, he went to the bathroom to dry off (I learned this later). So the reason I specifically mentioned it was a ramen place was for necessary context. Knowing Jacob, you probably know he has the most sensitive mouth. Our conversation was so much fun, but got even better when he immediately takes a bite of his ramen and then spits it back into the bowl because it was too hot. The ice was for sure broken after that. Our first date lasted about six hours; we both didn't want to stop talking. At the end of our first date, he asked me out again for Saturday night; then on Saturday, he asked me out again for Sunday night. On our Sunday night date, my car had actually got broken into so we drove to dinner in the rain with a busted out window. It was an eventful weekend! Our relationship has been a really fun gift. We especially got to know each other through six months of long distance and FaceTime calls every day. Now we're so excited to get married and then move into our home after the wedding! We're so excited to have everyone together to celebrate with us. We are grateful for those who can make the trip to MN to celebrate, and we're grateful for the people who are celebrating with us from afar!

I don't get very nervous often. Stressed? Absolutely, all the time, but nervous, never. That is until the night I was going to ask Syd to marry me. Actually, I'd been pretty nervous for a while, from buying the ring and hoping that I'd picked out the right one, to having to hide the ring from her (harder than you'd imagine), to actually coming up with what I hoped would be the perfect way to propose. Spoiler alert, it wasn't one of those grand proposals at Disneyland, it was something I wanted to be very intimate and special to her. Ever since I met her, she has absolutely loved hand-written things. When I travel for work, the one thing I know I need to get before I come home is a postcard with a hand-written message on the back and that's all she needs to be happy. So the proposal involved, you guessed it, a hand-written note. Basically I spilled my heart out onto this note (a piece of paper from my old thermo binder, S/O Dr. Asfaw Beyene) put the note in an old iPhone box and wrapped it. Then I put that into a slightly bigger box and wrapped that one. About 6 boxes later, I had her perfect Christmas gift. We were going to spend Christmas in Florida, and since Syd can be a bit... impatient at times, we decided to open gifts early before we flew out. I opened mine first, a brand new pair of Armachillo underwear!! She was up next, and so began box-ception. When she finally got to the note, she was so focused on reading she failed to realize that both her parents were recording her and I was sweating bullets, fumbling around in my huge bulky pocket for the ring box. She gets to the last line of the note, "I have one last thing to ask...", begins to realize what's going on, looks up teary eyed and there I am on a knee with the ring. She said yes, in case there was any question about the outcome. Based on her reaction, it couldn't have gone better.