Kirk and I knew of each other in high school, but we had never really spoken. He was one year younger than me, but we shared quite a few mutual friends. The summer after I graduated, we found ourselves at the same events through those friends. To get the ball rolling, I decided to go for it and wrote the first text I ever sent him: "Hey cutie :)". When we finally began to talk, we realized just how similar we were and how much we had in common. During one text conversation he asked me, "What are your interests?" and I knew he was going to be different than any other guy I had ever met. When Kirk graduated high school, we both moved to Oregon for college. Kirk moved to Eugene to attend the University of Oregon and I moved to Portland to go to Marylhurst University. The cities are about an hour and forty minutes apart, but we continued to see each other almost every weekend for the next three years. Kirk graduated from the University of Oregon and made the tough decision to move to Seattle for graduate school. Despite the increased distance, Kirk still came to Portland almost every weekend until I finished my studies at Marylhurst. After graduation, I moved to Seattle and we were reunited at last. We've now had 7 years of adventures, and we can't wait for all that is to come!

My 25th birthday was on August 15th and I wanted to do something special in celebration. I had the idea of going across the border to Victoria, B.C. since, being a Victoria myself, I'm interested in visiting as many places with my namesake as possible. Well, Kirk understands how much I love my birthday, and took it upon himself to plan a great birthday trip to Victoria. Little did I know (okay, I guess I suspected a little bit), he also saw this trip as an opportunity to propose to me. He set up hotels, ferries, and a variety of romantic things for the weekend. We stayed the night at a precious little bed and breakfast in Anacortes, WA on Friday, August 11th and took the ferry to Sidney B.C. the next morning. We had a delicious lunch on the water at this cute marina in Brentwood Bay, just north of Victoria. Afterwards, he had planned to take me straight to the nearby Butchart Gardens, a beautiful 54+ acre royal garden. We roamed the gardens for hours. I absolutely love flowers and could have stayed there all day. In one part of the garden there is a small pond and while we were by it there was a little otter swimming around and looking at the people. After fully exploring the garden, Kirk suggested heading back to see the otter again. We found a bench by the pond in a little alcove. We sat there for awhile, and while I was looking through the pamphlet trying to identify the tree in front of us, Kirk said, "Tori, I have something to ask you. I was going to wait until the end of the trip but I can't wait any longer!" And as I looked over at him, he had the ring and said, "Will you marry me!?" I was in absolute shock! I said "Of course!" and gave him a big hug, clutching the ring behind his back. We sat on that bench at least another hour talking about his adventures in buying the ring with his mom, how he planned to ask, and simply how perfect everything was. We made sure to buy some post cards, a magnet, and some seeds to always remember Butchart Gardens.