We’re getting married!

We met in high school, his senior year and my junior year to be exact. We sat right next to each other in American Literature. We didn’t know each other at first, but as the semester went on, our friends started hanging out, which led to us soending time together. That semester came to an end, with us constantly joking, but still saw each other because of our mutual friends. We “parted ways” as he went off to college and I started senior year of high school. I always had a crush on him, but there was no way I was going to tell him that! Little did we know we would meet again!

When I started my freshmen year of college at UNI, he lived in Cedar Rapids, where a few of my really close friends lived! We all started hanging out together as a group and times were great! That May, as the school year was coming to an end, we started talking more. I knew I would be leaving in August for California, but we both couldn’t help spending more time together as the summer went on. When I left for California we decided it was best to not try long distance, especially because I never thought I would move back to Iowa. After a few weeks of being in California, we were still talking everyday, because we couldn’t help it! I knew that I wanted to be with him, even if it meant being 1,800 miles away from each other! That entire year was so tough, but we made it work! And it was so worth it!

We got to the cabin in Hackensack, Minnesota for a family vacation Wednesday, with plenty of time to enjoy the sun and the day! We were planning to go up to the Mississippi Headwaters the next day to see where the Mississippi River starts and walk across it together, because we had never done that! We woke up the next day and decided to get breakfast, just the two of us in town, to have a little time alone together. After that, we headed back to the cabin to meet up with my brother, sister-in-law, and niece/nephews. We packed into our cars and headed up an hour North from where we were. It started raining once we got to the state park, making me and all of the kids, question if this was really that important. This is also when i noticed Hunter wasnt really talking! Once we got to the headwaters, we could see a school bus and a crowd of people. Luckily, most of the crowd cleared when it was our turn to cross. My brother and sister-in-law insisted we go across first, then them, and we can take pictures for each other, which made total sense!! After we crossed the river, we found a little nook, where he got down on one knee and asked me to be his forever! I didn’t see the ring for the first ten minutes, and could only smile and cry with happiness! We we’re both ecstatic!! We even got some applause from the audience that was there! Fun fact: A few weeks before we went I found a piece of mail from Jared and when confronted, Hunter had the great response, “Oh, I swear once you start looking online, they send you stuff!”, which I believed! The week before we went, I found another piece of mail from Jared, except this time with the saying “Billing Invoice Enclosed”, at which point I knew something fishy WAS going on! I didn’t know how purchasing an engagement ring worked and honestly thought maybe he had to wait to pick it up or it wasn’t ready yet!