We met on the first day of Honors orientation at WSU when Amethyst walked into the biggest lecture hall on campus and sat behind Garrett. With all the fervor of a college freshman, he whipped around in his attached-to-the-desk swivel chair and said "hi, I'm Garrett." It wasn't long after that we dominated our peers in a round of catchphrase -- a sign we interpreted to mean we were on the same wavelength. It didn't take long to become best friends. If it wasn't for our friendship throughout college, we're not sure we would have made it through. We became each other's cheerleader, confidant and safe place. And now we feel extremely lucky to have built our relationship on six years of best friendship. Truly -- it is the way to go!

After surviving college we realized our lifetime of adventures might entail more than friendly visits. Amethyst shared her feelings first (classic "don't wait" attitude) and after Garrett finished his year abroad for his Master's he came back to the states and confessed he too loved her more than a best friend. We started our relationship long distance, and then Covid disrupted the world and Amethyst wound up moving to Nevada during quarantine. Since then we've spent nearly every day together and we're still not sick of it.

Garrett planned a trip to Nevada in the middle of March, hitting the same weekend I impromptu “moved” to Fallon the year before. He took us to Zion for the first few days where we stayed in the perfect Airbnb A-frame overlooking the red rocks. We stayed in a small town called Hildale in UT and the first night we were there, not even yet unpacked, Garrett kept mentioning that we had to go for a hike. Not like casually mentioning it, but insisting we do a particular hike in a particular park. I didn’t catch on. Then he handed me a nice sweater and jeans to put on, to which I responded: “I’m not wearing skinny jeans to go for a hike.” I still didn’t catch on. We drove to a state park down the road from our Airbnb and instead of walking to one of the clearly marked trailheads, he directed me to an unofficial path off the side of the road. There were footprints already lining the trail, and even a line drawn in the sand for the length of our walk. I was enamored by the view, so I didn’t pay very much attention -- I actually assumed the line in the sand was from a bike -- and then we showed up to a clearing where the line turned into a circle and he stopped. I still didn’t catch on. Garrett asked me to take a quick video of our surroundings for the vlog. I started panning...slowly...and then, the camera was on him and there was the most beautiful ring I’ve ever seen sitting in his hand. And to be honest, it was at this moment my neurons were trying so hard to connect that I blacked out. Not like actually blacked out, but the type of feeling where my soul left my body in the best way. Garrett gave me a speech (which he had to tell me afterwards because all I could hear was my blood pounding in my ears) and then he got down on one knee, I jumped up and down like a crazed person, and then he asked me to be his life partner. You can probably guess the next part, but my answer was YES!

We have made the decision to step away from Social Media in 2021 -- for a lot of reasons -- but mostly to maintain some semblance of sanity in an increasingly loud world. Check out our monthly updates and unforgettable 2020 and 2021! https://sites.google.com/view/freibottkalt-vlogupdates/home?authuser=2