Well it’s fitting that we’re going to a wedding, as that’s where the whole thing started. I had planned to go to Miles and Lulu’s wedding solo, catch up with friends from high school, and that would be that. What actually happened, was I met this lady on the dance floor, had the best time I think I’ve had at a wedding reception, and left with a friend from Tennessee! We texted back and forth for a while, and I learned pretty quickly that she loved hiking and wanted to do a lot of it when she came to her clinic rotation in Bigfork MT. We planned a Glacier park trip for when she’d be up north, which ended up being a longer day than I’d initially thought it would be, (26 miles of hiking) but it sure was a good one! Due to work keeping me pretty busy, I didn’t see her again until November, when I took a last minute trip to Nashville to see the sights and get some Tennessee hiking in. Lainey played tour guide for my first time seeing TN, and we saw Nashville, Chattanooga, Knoxville, and the Great Smokies that weekend. The time was fantastic, and I knew Lainey was too, but I’ll be honest, the distance made me nervous so I wasn’t sure dating was the right choice. Through November and December of that year I gave it a lot of thought and more than a little prayer, trying to sort out what direction to take. Sometimes I think it takes someone else voicing their opinion for the right choice to become clear, and in conversation with Joe Haug (my youth leader through high school) it did just that for me. So when Lainey came to visit friends in Montana over New Years, we went to dinner, had a little “Define the Relationship” talk, and turns out she liked me too so we started dating! From then till now, it’s been a year full of flights back and forth to Tennessee, hiking and road trips through Montana, Tennessee, Colorado, and Washington, concerts, national parks, and ski days. And now here we are, at another wedding! This one I’m pretty excited for 🤩