Our story began in October 2016 on the bus ride back from a fall conference with the UW-Madison Navigators. Aside from making fun of each other, we didn’t spend much time together on that bus, but we both secretly (or not so secretly) hoped we would see each other more after that day. We reconnected in the spring semester through Joshua team, a leadership training course run by the Navs, and after a few weeks of “accidentally” paring up in ice breaker activities and staying after J-team to catch up, we became good friends. - Chase At the beginning of March, Chase asked me on a date. The next day we enjoyed some chemistry homework, Chipotle, and a long walk across campus. While I still think of this as our first date, Chase says that our actual first date was a trip we took to a cute diner just outside of Madison a week later. I think it was all great :) -Joelle

Chase told me he was going to be in town to spend time with some friends for his birthday, which seemed totally reasonable to me. In reality he spent the whole day setting up this proposal and surprised me big time. He texted me the night before to let me know he was going to stop by my house and to say hi while he was in town. I waited all morning for him to come over but there was no follow up call, text or visit so I got a little frustrated. I decided to make plans with my roommates and figured that Chase had completely forgotten about his text the night before. Alyssa, Caroline and I planned to go for a walk through a nearby park since it was the first sunny day we had seen in weeks. Just as we were about to leave, Chase knocked on my door. He apologized for not being able to spend more time with me, handed me a letter, and ran out the door. I was in a bit of a hurry to get on the road so I thought nothing of it. I put the unopened letter on my dresser and tried to shoo my roommates out the door. Apparently they knew what was going on the whole time and came up with some really good ways to stall me so that I would open the envelope. While I was waiting for them I finally decided to open the letter and realized it was the first clue to a scavenger hunt Chase had made for me with a ring at the end of it. I read the letter three more times to make sure it was real and then headed outside to find all the clues. The last clue led to Picnic Point were Chase was waiting by the lake with lots of lights and a beautiful sunset. The best!! A day I will remember for a long time. - Joelle