In the fall of 2020, the world felt upside down. We were young college kids trying to navigate a new reality shaped by Covid — masks, distancing, and uncertainty. When Alexandria Tech announced a brand‑new golf team, both of us signed up for reasons that had nothing to do with romance. I joined because golf had been taken from me my senior year of high school, and I wasn’t ready to let it go. I hoped the team would give me a chance to keep playing and maybe make a few friends in a year when connection felt almost impossible. Brady joined for a very different reason: intramural sports were canceled, he needed something competitive to do, and he discovered that being on the team meant free golf. That was all the convincing he needed. Neither of us expected much from an inexperienced team thrown together in the middle of a pandemic. But somehow, between the masks, social distancing, and the shared hope that life would eventually feel normal again, we found each other. Looking back, it’s almost funny — in a world where everything felt uncertain, the two of us ended up finding the one thing that felt hopeful for the future. After a few months of beating around the bush, Brady finally asked me to be his girlfriend in December of 2020. In the fall of 2022, we moved to Fargo together so I could start my career and Brady could continue college, by the spring of 2024 we found ourselves settling in Perham to be closer to our families. That summer, in July we brought home our adorable chocolate lab, Java, who instantly became the center of our little world. Then, in September of 2025, Brady built up the confidence (and the savings account) to ask me to marry him — and I said yes.