We met in the beginning of August, 2016, at our friend's lake house up near Olympia, Washington. The weather was beautiful and we had a great time swimming, playing games, riding jet skis, etc. Kaliese and I had a couple of 1-on-1 conversations throughout the weekend, we really enjoyed each other's company, and, of course, we both thought the other was cute. A few weeks passed and Kaliese decided to message me on Facebook, asking how my new students were. How did she know that it was the first day of school? Did she look it up online? I was impressed! We messaged each other back and forth for a couple of weeks and Kaliese mentioned that she wanted to get into snowboarding. I offered to help her find all of her gear online, but really it was a way for me to keep talking with her and potentially take her up to the mountain. Our first "official" date was a concert to see Chance the Rapper at the end of October. I had just started listening to Chance and heard that he was coming to Portland. So I spent...a little bit of money to take Kaliese and we had a great time. We continued going on dates throughout November and then things really picked up over Thanksgiving break when we met each other's families and spent every possible moment together. I asked Kaliese to be my girlfriend officially on my birthday (November 26th) in Powell's Book Store (which is a really funny story that I probably don't have enough characters to type out). Then nine awesome, perfect months later, I proposed at the Tamolitch Blue Pool on the McKenzie River Trail in Oregon. Kaliese had told me early on in our relationship that this was her favorite place in the world, so I figured I would make it even more special! We are SO incredibly excited to get married and can't wait to be surrounded by all of the people that we love on our big day!