We both decided to join a softball team but for different reasons, his to meet new Chicago friends and hers to try something new and help a girlfriend hopefully find a cute boy. Little did she know, she would be the one finding the cute boy. For some reason, they put Maddie at short stop, and if you know anything about baseball/softball, this position is a critical linchpin to the teams success (LOL). With Nick at 3rd base, we yapped our way through 7 innings of getting our butts kicked, but that didn't matter because within the first 5 minutes he had successfully identified that my shorts were the hotty hot 2.5" inseam from spring 2018.

This past year, we were setting out to run our second marathon together. She committed to this being her last and so did he, but lets be honest, we all can see him running it a time or two with just a little convincing. Anyways, it was a long and grueling summer of training and the only goal that we had was to finish at a faster time than our first marathon. This year we also had a large party lined up that evening to celebrate our final marathon and all those that donated to our charity, in addition to his family joining us all the way from Orlando! This is where the hurricane part came in - Milton had taken landfall just a few days before the marathon was happening in Chicago, and we were worried if his family and their home were going to make it let alone them being able to safely travel up to Chicago. But what she didn't know is that they had the ring, and that ring did not leave their side throughout the whole hurricane, and they were going to stop at nothing to make sure it made it to Chicago. We started the race together stride by stride, and just before mile one, yes mile ONE, she could hardly breathe let alone have forward progress thanks to debilitating cramps. He took this one hard, because of the plans he had lined up for later, and she started to walk. He checked in every few miles and made sure I was pushing through the pain. The cramps started to go away around mile 10 and she was getting into her groove. We had an incredible support system of our closest friends and family lining the streets of Chicago as we passed through mile after mile nearing the finish line. As she approached the finish line, he texted her that he was going to slow down and wait, so that we could cross the finish line together, and she immediately started balling, which let me tell ya, makes it very difficult to catch your breath nearing mile 26. She slowly caught up to him and we ultimately crossed the finish line hand in hand, down to the same millisecond, with our family on the finish line cheering us on. From there it was go time prepping for our party. He secretly lured me up to the rooftop under the guises that there were younger hooligans in our reserved spot and would not get out. She quickly came upstairs, expecting to go full "Karen," and instead, he was waiting for me down on one knee. And of course, she said yes!