Rachel and James both went to the same college, lived in the same dorm freshman year, were in the same major, and yet didn't really become friends until the later years of college. You'd think that the universe was trying to put them together, but they circled in friend groups apart until junior year when Rachel joined an intramural softball team that James had organized. After the first softball practice, Rachel knew something for certain - she was terrible at softball. Not only did she not know the rules well, she couldn't hit the ball to save her life. She learned during practice that James was the coach of the team and that he drove down from Hillsboro to Corvallis to run practices/play in the softball games. Rachel approached James for some 1:1 lessons to try and get better so she didn't let the team down. James interpreted this approach not only as a training opportunity, but as a sly way for Rachel to ask to spend time with him. He started to think, "hey maybe this cute girl likes me", but made no moves the rest of the quarter, although he did dance with Rachel at the end of the year chemical engineer party. After the school year ended for Rachel, she went back to her hometown to start her internship, which just happened to be where James was already living for his internship. Rachel, wanting to have friends to hang out with, asked James if he wanted to grab some drinks in town. So they went to a bar in Beaverton, played some giant Connect Four and had a good time. What Rachel wasn't expecting, was that as James dropped her off at the house, he kissed her! Maybe too obliviously, Rachel hadn't interpreted the hangout as a date and promptly started to panic and went inside to try and process what had just happened. James, being left high and dry, tried to distract himself by going free diving off a frigid Oregon Coast Jetty in Garibaldi as he waited for Rachel to respond back via text. But when she did, he was disappointed to learn that she wasn't interested at this point. Rachel was thinking ahead, she didn't want to get a relationship right before graduating and potentially moving across the country, where it might be too hard to continue a relationship. So, they stayed friends that whole summer binging tv shows after work, going country line dancing, and even encouraging each other to go on dates with other friends. By the end of the summer, it was obvious - they both really liked spending time together. James went back to college before Rachel did, and she kept finding excuses to come down and stay with him. Eventually, they both realized that they really liked having each other in their lives and officially started dating on 10/11/2019. We haven't looked back since.

The day of our engagement was already fun to begin with. Our friend Allie was in town and stayed over at our house so we were enjoying every bit of time with her before she caught her flight that night back to Portland. James, Allie, and Thistle went on a 10 mile run, while I slept in and went to pick them up and enjoyed the farmers market. Since the two of them were tired from the run, we hung out at the house watching Netflix and doing our nails until it was closer to Allie's flight time. James had suggested to me that we could go out for a drink as a date night after we dropped off Allie, and had dressed up really nice for the opportunity. Not intending to be outshone, I went and put on makeup and some nice clothes as well, with the intention of finding a cocktail place after. James had suggested a place on Treasure Island that we had never been to before, so I was interested in going. Allie's flight was out of Oakland, so before going to the airport, we stopped at one of my favorite ramen places in Oakland - Marufuku Ramen - for dinner. James acted a little strange in insisting that he wanted to slide in to the seat, but me being already there I just said no worries, just sit in the other seat. He then excused himself to the bathroom where I later learned he had to switch pockets for the ring box because he had anticipated sitting on the other side of me. We had delicious ramen and some sake and then walked around the area for a bit. As we went to the car to go to the Oakland Airport, I mentioned that we could park and walk in to the airport, so I could use the bathroom there, but James convinced me to go back and use the bathroom at the ramen place instead. We got to the airport, gave Allie some hugs and sent her on her way. I had looked up the cocktail place James had mentioned earlier on my phone and saw that it was closed, so James suggested that we just park and take a walk near the airport along the Bay. Seemingly guessing where to go, he led me to a parking lot and we walked around, enjoying the early evening and some beautiful views of the Bay and taking some pictures of the two of us. We had lagged a little bit in our picture taking, so we hurriedly walked back the way we came to watch the sunset go down over San Francisco. I started to get suspicious when we kept passing perfectly good benches to sit and watch. The sun was going down, and my rationality of stopping and watching didn't faze James at all as he pulled me back toward where we started....and where our friends hid in the bushes for our engagement. As he pulled me, he started thinking I knew what was going on and saying things like "you're too smart" and "i love you so much" which is when I actually realized I was about to get proposed to. We awkwardly dodged a family that had walked into the area and then he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. And of course I said YES! After a few minutes of crying happily on my part and getting the ring put on my finger, the next surprise happened - a bunch of my friends jumped out of the bushes, blaring Taylor Swift on a speaker and running over to us. Not only were there some local friends, but James had gotten some of our Portland friends (including Allie) to fly down and were all picked up from the airport right after we had dropped Allie off (which is why I definitely wasn't allowed to go use the bathroom in there). It was absolutely amazing to not only celebrate the moment with my new fiance but also with all of my friends. We popped a huge bottle of champagne, sung along to Taylor Swift and ended the night back at our place, where Megan and Alec had decorated, and celebrating the rest of the weekend. A dream engagement come true, I don't think I've ever been happier or had more fun in my entire life. Hats off to James and all the people involved in making it such a special day.