Meeting someone during graduate school is HARD. After spending years pouring your focus and energy into one avenue of life, anything aside feels like a distraction. We were fortunate enough to cross paths at a research conference in 2013, though the timing wasn’t quite right. Two years later, we crossed paths again and made one of the most important decisions of our lives: to begin a relationship over a distance of 500 miles. Three years later, that distance increased to 900 miles when Kristen transferred to the University of Florida, and it was basically what you would imagine. A lot of texting, a lot of calls on the way home from work, and a lot of driving back and forth across the Gulf states. Every relationship takes hard work – we were just lucky that most of our challenges were tangible.

Meeting someone during graduate school is thrilling. Especially when that someone understands exactly what you’re dealing with at work, on top of having the same interests in outdoor activities, music, and travel destinations. Instead of giving much more narrative here, we’ll just list some of the happy parts: Tom and Kristen share a fateful bus ride back from a fisheries conference event, each self-consciously wondering if they are boring the other with their conversation. As luck would have it, they were not. We speculate that as Tom and Kristen’s PhD advisors are old chums, they conspired like the mythical Fates to coordinate their meeting through various academic events. Tom first meets Kiah and Dill, the most charismatic dogs ever. Kiah expresses her approval through lots of scream barking and mouthing-of-arms. Dill has never met anyone she doesn’t love, so it’s not really clear if Tom has earned any special place in her heart. Tom meets the rest of The Dahls (Bob, Rayann, Lana, Shea). Tom is relieved to learn The Dahls are a raucous but respectable bunch, whose love of good music, cocktails and yard games is only surpassed by their love of Kristen (well, all of their daughters). The Dahls are relieved to learn Tom has no criminal record, and graciously overlook the fact that he is not a future UF alumnus. The Dahls tenuously accept Tom as suitor to their firstborn. Tom and The Dahls attend Mardi Gras in the birthplace of Mardi Gras (Mobile, Alabama, duh!). Tom and the Dahl family form a jam band. Kristen meets The TinHans. They get along so well that Tom begins to wonder if he has been replaced as the favorite (only) child.

Florida Keys: Kristen outfishes Tom for the first (but definitely not the last) time. Kristen and The TinHans avoid suicidal nocturnal marsupials on Tasmanian roads and also see lots of lavender, watch penguins fall, and meet Kiah’s cousin the Tasmanian devil. Tom and Kristen get stuck in rainstorms, tunnels (nearly), and with broken bicycles in Okinawa. They also visit the easternmost members of the Dahl family, Chris and Tsuru, who are the living embodiment of omotenashi. Kristen moves to Texas, thus ending the long-distance cycle of madness. Kristen learns what “cold” means at Niagara Falls in March. Tom officiates the wedding of dear friend Jeff in Seattle. Kristen is embarrassed by Tom’s jokes (in general, but also specifically during the ceremony). Tom, Kristen, The Dahls, and The TinHans travel to Kitzbuhel, Austria for what Kristen thinks is “just another ski trip in the Alps”. Yawn. As it turns out, she was about to be tricked into saying yes to a very important question. Also, Shea is concussed by a mountain and the entire troupe narrowly avoids stranding in a blizzard at 6000 feet. Tom, Kristen, Bob, Rayann and the dogs learn about the psychological and mechanical limits of driving an RV across 9 states. Tom and Kristen move to Hawaii. After months of falling in love with the natural and cultural splendor of the Hawaiian Islands, they decide the wedding should....logically be held in Texas.