I was about to give a prospective student a tour of Northwest Nazarene University's campus, and I saw this girl sitting on the steps who came and approached us when it was time for the tour to start, saying that she was shadowing my tour as part of her Student Ambassador training. After a couple weeks of studying together in the library, I finally rustled up some courage and decided to ask her out. The next study session I was really quiet, and I told her I had to leave early just in case it went badly. Right as I was leaving I asked, "Hey, you want to get coffee or something, sometime?" Thankfully she said "Sure," and I asked if we could do it on Monday, but she had a test to study for. So 7pm Tuesday was the day that we planned to go to the Flying M, one of the coffee shops by campus. As I was walking out with my head held high and my spirits higher, I realized that I accidentally scheduled this date on Valentine's day... (which we didn't talk about for a LONG time because we didn't know if the other person thought it was either awkward or intentional). As I was walking Emily back to her dorm after that first date, I learned two things: 1) she walks really fast, and 2) she ended up having a good enough time to go on a second date with me that weekend.

Joshua had won a gift card to Olive Garden in a drawing at NNU, so we had plans to celebrate the end of the semester by eating at Olive Garden. I wasn't expecting the proposal to happen that evening, partly because I was so excited about Olive Garden's breadsticks and partly because Joshua had told me that he'd ordered the ring but it wasn't going to come in until the New Year. We had planned to exchange Christmas gifts at Lake Lowell, one of our favorite spots to watch the sunset close to campus, after dinner. Joshua opened a watch and a vest from me, which were nice but a little sub-par compared to what I opened up in return. Much to my surprise, as I pulled the tissue paper out of his gift for me and didn't find anything in the bottom, I looked over to see him down on one knee with a ring in his hand! He asked me to make him the happiest man in the world and marry him and of course I said yes!