We met in the fall of 2020. Katie was finished with school and working at Bozeman Health and Riley was going to school at MSU. One night at a party we met and a couple weeks later we went on our first date at Bar3 BBQ in Belgrade. We continued to hang out and Riley took Katie ice fishing for the first time and that is when we decided to make things official. And we have been together ever since! After Riley graduated in May of 2022 the adventure began. We started traveling for work, both gaining experience in our fields. First stop was Utah, Katie lived in Salt Lake City and Riley was in Price, Utah. We always made the distance work, seeing each other every weekend. We spent 3 months in Utah and then went to West Plains, Missouri where we spent 6 months and if you know us, you know we hated it there. We both agree that if we survived that, we can survive anything together. After making it out of Missouri we moved back to Utah, this time southern Utah. Once again we were in different towns. Katie in St. George and Riley less than an hour north in Cedar City, UT. After a summer there, we made our way back to MT. Katie took a short job in Big Sky for the winter and Riley was home working in Great Falls. We stayed closer to home with our next jobs, Riley then went to Idaho for a couple months while Katie was in Kalispell and then Riley landed a job in Lewistown while Katie was in Red Lodge. And then in the fall of 2024 Riley interviewed for a permanent Fish Tech job in Great Falls and got it! All the traveling and long distance paid off and now we get to live in the same town in the same house. We had been waiting for this for a long time and couldn’t be more excited that we ended up close to home. We enjoy floating the Missouri River, catching fish, archery hunting in the falls and ice fishing in the winter. On July 18, 2025 we were floating the Missouri in our new drift boat. It was a beautiful day and it was also Katie’s birthday. About halfway through the float we pulled off on a little island near Craig. Riley wanted to take a picture of the two of us so he set up his phone for a self timer picture. Katie had no idea he was about to propose. As we were posing for the picture Riley was fumbling in his pocket for the ring and then got down on one knee. Katie was completely surprised and of course said YES! And now the real adventure begins and we can’t wait to celebrate with the people we love!