Gavin and Morgan officially met their freshman year at K-State in their Introduction to Civil Engineering class. On the first day, the professor had everyone in class say their name and where they were from, during which they learned that they both grew up in Minnesota only about 1.5 hours from each other. The two of them both found it to be quite the coincidence to meet another Minnesotan roughly 8 hours away from home. Despite the coincidence, Morgan did not actually recall meeting Gavin at this time frame, until she was reminded of this years later… yikes😬. However, this could’ve been largely due to the oddities surrounding how classes worked with the ever changing dynamics of covid and everyone wearing masks. As the year progressed, Gavin & Morgan learned that they both resided in the same dorm hall and they had friends within their groups that overlapped. As the groups started to overlap Gavin & Morgan continued to get to know each other and become friends.

Fast forward approximately 2.5 years after meeting, Gavin & Morgan had become very close friends through their shared classes, homework, studying, & many parties and activities with their shared friend group. On April 16th, 2023, late Spring of their junior year, Gavin asked Morgan to be his girlfriend!

In the Spring of 2024, Morgan and Gavin both graduated with a Bachelor’s of Science in Civil Engineering! At this point Gavin & Morgan were faced with making career decisions on where they wanted to start their first job out of college. Gavin, accepted a job with Mortensen Civil as a traveling field engineer. For him this meant moving around the United States every six month to a year to live where his next project assignment was. Morgan, accepted a job with Benesch as a bridge design engineer in Kansas City. Luckily, with her position she has been able to work remote periodically to come and visit Gavin. Since their graduation, Gavin has worked on 4 different projects in 3 different states all listed sequentially: Galva, IL -> Plainview, TX -> Stillwater, OK -> Wichita Falls, TX. Gavin’s work schedule enables him to be able to travel to Kansas City every 3 weeks for a long weekend, and then Morgan will fill in the gaps and travel to Gavin’s location to work remote on one of the 3 weeks when Gavin is on site. This means they get to see each other about every 2 weeks. Despite the distance, Gavin & Morgan have made the most of it over the last 2 years.

In late September 2025, Morgan and Gavin decided to go on a trip to Maine! As per usual with many of their trips, they started planning well in advance… 8 days before leaving to be exact. As one could guess, with so much advance notice, they were still planning parts of their trip as they were on their trip. Including the one big part that Gavin was putting together without Morgan’s knowledge! On Tuesday September 23rd Gavin & Morgan departed Kansas City in route to Bangor, Maine. In their layover, Gavin was actively working with the photographer to put together the plan for proposing… the NEXT day, September 24th. Luckily for Gavin, the photographer he found was well prepared for the last minute request and determined the perfect spot to propose for the weather that day and capturing a scenic backdrop. The spot they decided on was on a trail called “The Great Head Trail” in Acadia National Park. Gavin was now convinced nothing could go wrong as the proposal was only 18 hours away. That was until the next morning, when Morgan changed her mind from the night before’s previous conversations, and decided she no longer wanted to curl her hair and wear the nicer clothes she had planned on. Gavin, in the most nonchalant attempt he could muster, convinced Morgan back into curling her hair, saying “it won’t take you any longer to curl your hair, and besides it’s a little windy so maybe the curls would help if we stop to take any pictures.” Knowing all along this was completely false but hoping the slight nudge would get Morgan back on track to Gavin’s plan. Eventually Morgan conceded to the idea and they were able to head out the door. The two finally began their hike along the trail. The trail had several spots that branched off from the main trial and led towards the ocean, luckily for Gavin, Morgan chose the correct one that the photographer had Gavin looking for. Once they walked down the trail they reached a rocky beach with a small cliff side. Knowing he would need a quick distraction to make sure everything was in place, Gavin grabbed his binoculars and frantically searched for something to look at, eventually finding several ducks, they were actually seagulls… in the water out in front of them. Gavin looked through first to peak Morgan’s interest and then handed the binoculars off to Morgan. While Morgan was looking, Gavin gave one quick look to the photograph to make sure he was in place and then Gavin got down on one knee behind her. When she put the binoculars down and turned around, she saw this and was overjoyed! Gavin had asked her to marry him and she said yes!

Gavin and Morgan love to play board games and card games. They enjoy games such as scrabble, cribbage, and many more! The couple loves to travel. In total they have been to 21 states together. With some of the domestic travel highlight destinations being: • Acadia National Park • Asheville, NC • Great Smoky Mountains National Park • Durango, CO • Albuquerque, NM • Big Bend National Park • New York City, NY They have recently started traveling to some international destinations as well that is highlighted with: • Costa Rica with Gavin’s family • A Caribbean Cruise with Morgan’s family that stopped in Honduras & Mexico. Gavin and Morgan’s favorite food are Raspberries.