We met at a church backyard barbeque. I had moved to Philadelphia two days before that and was happy to have found something to do on Memorial Day. I was playing a game in the pool and got a little competitive... When I got out of the pool I looked down and I was bleeding from my knee to my ankle. I went to go get cleaned up and that's when I ran into Noah. He offered to get me food, bandaids, water, anything, but being the strong independent woman that I am I turned down his offers. After the barbeque ended, I realized that I had carpooled with one of Noah's friends. Noah carpooled back to Philly with us but he offered to drive. I was a little disappointed that he was driving because I had wanted to sit next to him. About a week later he mustered up the courage to ask for my number and the rest is history.

It was my first full week in Philadelphia and my coworkers invited me to go on a bar crawl. I don't drink and had never been to a bar so I was a little nervous, to say the least. I was talking to one of my new Philly church friends about it and he suggested that I invite Noah since "Noah always goes to stuff like that". (Side note, Noah doesn't drink either haha.) I asked Noah if he would come with me and he said yes! We ended up going to two bars and then went to get cheesesteaks. I remember I was so impressed with how he involved everyone and kept the conversation going even though he had never met any of my coworkers and we had only met earlier that week.

We have two different versions of this one. The second date is when Noah got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. The first date listed notes when we were talking on the phone (I was in Utah finishing up my last semester of school and Noah was in Philadelphia doing rotations for med school). I told Noah that I had just found out that I landed an interview with an investment bank that I had been eying for years. Even getting an interview was a huge deal. The job would be in Salt Lake City with the potential of transferring to New York after a year or so. At one point in our conversation I remember telling Noah, "If by some miracle I get a job offer, it will be very difficult for me to turn it down as I can't imagine another job opening as many doors for my career as this job would." I paused and then asked him, "What would that mean for us?" I was scared that he would want to end our relationship, but I figured that would be the case. Taking the job would mean long distance for at least another year or two which is a lot. I remember that he paused, and I could tell there was something he wanted to say. I waited and then said, "Noah, just say it." He paused a little longer and said, "Halea, you're the woman I want to marry. And if I have to wait I'll wait. But you're the one that I want." I was shocked. I covered my mouth and just smiled. Earlier that morning as I was getting ready I remembered thinking "I want to marry Noah Christian" but I was not planning on bringing that up for at least a couple months. But Noah was braver than me and just said it. I ended up getting the job offer from the bank in Salt Lake but kept looking and applying for jobs and ended up landing a dream job in Washington D.C that I will be starting in April. While D.C and Philadelphia are not super close to each other, we're excited to at least be in the same time zone. Baby steps haha.