I had been on the search for my perfect someone, the love of my life and dating in this century is all about dating apps. I tried and failed so many times with these apps, but I have always been hopeful to finding and deserving a love so true it changes your soul – so I tried again. The download begins. I start updating my Bumble profile and pictures to show all sides of me – I like to travel, have cool friends, likes sports – the normal stuff. I start swiping and land upon this cute guy – funny puns about his name being Nick and how he likes Nicholas Cage. Ok, I’m intrigued let me read more. Tells me a little about himself and swipe through his photos – very cute so I swipe right. Didn’t match. Oh well keep swiping…. A little while later that same boy pops up on my account as a match! I messaged him, “Hey Nick, Happy Thursday! How’s your week going?”. He answers back and we start talking and decide to meet up at a restaurant called Ciros for a Monday night cocktail. The date night comes and I’m nervous. I start to walk into the restaurant and see Nick sitting at the bar. WOW! Cuter in person so that’s a plus. I walk up introduce myself and our conversation starts to flow with the typical first date interview questions. We finish our first drink and Nick asks if I want another – definitely yes, which from talking with him later on “he knew he hooked me if I wanted another drink”. We talked more, even got some free nachos from the bar, then slowly ended our night with walking to our cars. We said our goodbyes and he leaned in for our first kiss. Sparks fly! I knew I had to see him again and he felt the same way. We started to see each other more and more. When I went off to Europe only a month into meeting Nick, we continue to talk but I missed him so much. I began to realize, I was falling hard for this guy and needed him in my life. Coming back and seeing him only made it more clear – this was the man I was going to spend the rest of my life with.

It's difficult to surprise Kristin, especially when we're quarantined and we both work from home. I did manage to sneak out and say I was going into the "office" a few times as I really went ring shopping. Being tied down at home, it would also be challenging to get Kristin out somewhere without her suspicions rising, so I used her birthday as a ruse. Seeing as the ring was to be ready after her birthday, I had to ensure Kristin didn't think I forgot to order a present ahead of time, but I also had to cover for the ring being late. I had made up a story about my present from Etsy was all wrong and I had to return it. I frustratingly packed up an empty box and went to the post office to return the empty box (I was really driving around to kill time). Good news for me, I had received a call that the ring was ready the morning of Kristin's birthday. Kristin conveniently went out for lunch with her parents giving me an opportunity to get the ring without her knowing. That night, since Kristin thought she wasn't getting any presents on her birthday, I had set up a trivia game for her to play after dinner. The trivia game were questions about different events and people in our lives. Depending on the number of questions Kristin got correct determined the presents she received at the end which I told her that she would receive once I got the package back from the mysterious Etsy seller. As we went through the 33 (because Kristin turned 33) question trivia game that I had built, I was anxiously awaiting the last question that was soon approaching. Finally, Kristin came to the last multiple choice question. The question asked Kristin, "When will Nick propose?". The only possible answers were "Tonight". While Kristin was in shock (I've never seen her so surprised), I pulled the ring box out from behind a couch cushion and got on one knee to ask Kristin to marry me. Oh, and she said YES!!!