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Neil and Katharine met on a fateful day in 9th grade language arts class in August 2006. Their teacher, Mrs. Aldrich, arranged the class alphabetically by first name, and thus Katharine and Neil were sat together. After a name memorization exercise, Ninja Neil and Kooky Katharine were sat at different tables for the rest of the year, as a great romance would likely have been distracting to the other freshmen. All was not lost however, as a semester together in science class led to the exchanging of AOL instant messenger usernames between pippitrackstar and f1senna7. Many nights of conversation on AIM were had, as all great 2000 era love stories start. Neil and Katharine took different paths in high school before both ending up at the University of Iowa. Fate attempted to push them together again as Neil took a student job at the engineering library in the same building where Katharine was getting her engineering degree. Unfortunately, fate did not account for Katharine never going to the library (oops). Eventually, Neil slid into Katharine's DMs towards the end of their senior year of college. They met up over beers at Foxhead Tavern and Neil decided to ask Katharine on a date to Oasis, his favorite falafel restaurant. Although impressed by his elaborate sauce routine and his limited edition maple finish skate shoes with duct tape on them, Katharine decided it wasn't going to work out. After a failed attempt at ghosting (oops again), they decided to continue hanging out as friends, meeting up over more beers every weekend. A few months later, Katharine realized she may have been too quick to judge and started to plot to get Neil back. After some failed attempts that almost pushed them apart again, romance finally finally finally blossomed. From that point on, Neil and Katharine were together. Over the last almost 11 years, Neil and Katharine stuck together through weird job schedules, multiple moves, jobs changes, new hobbies, many couple's halloween costumes, and all of life's ups and downs. They moved in together, living in a tiny apartment in Iowa City for many years, where friends had the opportunity of crawling over the kitchen sink to sit on the porch (actually a roof). They traveled around the US, to Virginia and California, to New Orleans and North Dakota. Neil and Katharine eventually bought a house, leading to many adventures at home including hours of scraping cat pee out of their floors, making friends with their beloved squirrels, and constructing their garden. On a cold winter day in February, Neil got down on one knee at their favorite spot in Hickory Hill Park. After so many years together, they will finally make it official in June 2025.