Laeken and Jezreel’s journey was not a swift one. They did not meet, fall in love, and date over the course of a year or so. Their bond was not procured out of romance but of friendship. July 2025 marks nine years after the two first met. Laeken was an emo fifteen year old obsessed with K-Pop, One Direction, and art. Jezreel was an awkward and reticent thirteen year old, with a penchant towards sunburning. It was July, at summer camp, when the worlds of the two collided. Laeken thought Jezreel was quite odd and Jezreel didn’t think much of Laeken (Jezreel has since forgotten meeting Laeken at camp). Their introductions seemed hardly meaningful and it wasn’t until several months later acquaintances became friends. In the early spring of the following year Jezreel’s family happened to visit the Seventh Day Adventist Church in Ashland, Wisconsin. Unbeknownst to the Hasman family the Ashland church was home to an exuberant family of four daughters and their parents, one of those daughters, Laeken. Over the next six years a most boisterous and remarkable friendship evolved. However, dynamics began to change slightly once both ended up at the same university. The two were inseparable. It wasn’t long until almost every weekend Jezreel was accompanying Laeken to her church on weekends and it wasn’t long after that until the two began dating (February of 2023). An inseparable friendship filled with love, admiration, and ebullience became one of love, admiration, ebullience, and commitment. Thereafter the delightful couple dated for one year and seven months till their engagement in September of 2024.