Austin and I met through a mutual friend at a college party the night of Halloween. My friends and I went as princesses with handmade tulle tutus and cheap tiaras. Austin went as a Ronnie from Jersey Shore wearing a black tank top and gold chain. We did not exchange phone numbers until May after hanging out together several times with the same friend group. Our schedules did not line up so we talked as much as we could but did not see each other much in person until December. We officially started dating 8 months after we started talking (a year and 4 months after meeting) on February 23rd when Austin finally asked me to be his girlfriend.

After I graduated from college, I got a job teaching math at Fort Lupton Middle School. At the time, Austin planned to attend CSU so we moved in together to an apartment in Greeley which was the middle ground between those two locations. Austin later decided to attend Aims Community College followed by UNC instead. We had hardly any furniture when we first moved in so we watched TV and ate dinner on while sitting in camping chairs for the first 2-3 weeks before our couch and dining room furniture arrived.

Our next big life event was adopting little Wren about 9 months after moving in together. We adopted her in May of 2018 so that I could help train her throughout the summer. After having such an easy time raising our Wren, we decided we wanted to get a second dog for her to have a playmate while we were gone at work/school. A little less than a year later, we adopted Finley in April of 2019.

After surviving through COVID times in our tiny one bedroom apartment with us and both dogs, we decided we definitely needed more space and a yard. My coworker and friend, Chuck, helped us start looking for houses in January of 2022. After looking at several houses, we found the perfect house in Windsor. It had tons of indoor space and an office as well a smaller, manageable backyard for the dogs.

On February 24th, we went to celebrate our 7th anniversary a day late at the Melting Pot in Fort Collins for fondue and drinks. When we are about 5 minutes from the house, Austin said that I needed to stay in the car because he had to set up my gift. That seemed rather unusual so this was the first time I started wondering if maybe he was going to propose. When I walked in, I saw a pathway and a heart on the coffee table made out of fake red and white rose petals and fake tea lights. Behind Austin were light up letters that read "Marry Me". Austin was so nervous he could barely get the words out about how much he loved me and asked me to make him the happiest man by marrying him. I, of course, said yes but only after setting down all the billion of things in my hands and unintentionally making him sweat a little bit first. Looking back at it, there were definitely signs that something was going to happen including a number of surprise packages arriving at our house (we never get anniversary gifts for each other except flowers) as well as Austin being weirdly insistent about which outfit I should wear.