Joel and Brittany went to high school together and hung around the same group of friends. After 7 years of not talking or seeing each other Joel messaged Brittany on Facebook one Sunday night. Over the next few hours we messaged back and forth catching up on life. Three hours later Joel asked Brittany out on a date.

Joel lived in Ames and Brittany lived in Norwalk. Brittany was going back to Ames for a few days for Thanksgiving so we decided to wait to go on our first date until then. We went out the Wednesday before Thanksgiving since we would be with family the next few days. Joel suggested we go to Mothers in campus town for a few drinks. Since it was Thanksgiving break for Iowa State we were the only ones at the bar. What Brittany thought would be just a few drinks over a couple hours turned into us catching up on the past 7 years and realizing we had a lot more in common then we thought. After we said good bye that night we both knew right away this was going to turn into something special!

While driving home after a long day at work the only thing making Brittany smile was knowing Joel was on his way over for the weekend. When Brittany pulled into her apartment parking lot she was surprised he wasn't already there. Brittany walked up to her apartment to find flowers and a note on my door. The note was Joel asking her to be his girlfriend.

All week we had been talking about going to Latin King for dinner Saturday night. After dinner Brittany suggested that we drive downtown and see if it was busy since it was the very beginning of COVID-19 and people started staying home. We drove around downtown and Joel suggested we go to the Pappajohn Sculpture Park and walk around. In the past we had parked by the sculpture park and always talked about walking around it someday; so it didn't seem strange for him to suggest it. After walking around the park we ended up at the red LOVE sculpture. Before she knew it Joel was telling her he wrote a poem; as soon as those words came out of his mouth the tears began and I knew what was about to happen. Brittany let Joel read the poem and get down on one knee before she started jumping up and down saying YES YES YES I WLL MARRY YOU!