In a beautiful big cabin in Buena Vista, Colorado while country swing dancing, and having quality conversations about Christ, a crush formed which would lead to the divine love story Anna and I share today. In 2018, Anna was stressing over her intense chemical engineering exams in Fort Collins, CO. In the meantime, I was rigging up my fly fishing boat and getting ready for another day on the river in Gunnison, CO. While both workflows looked tremendously different, we were both looking to find a few key things in our lives. Anna was struggling to find balance with her relationship with God, quality time with friends, and having fun outdoor adventures, all while keeping up with her major's insane demands. I was fresh out of seminary school and struggling to find structure, organization, and consistency in my life. With all this in our lives we found ourselves going on a 3 day long retreat in the mountains of Buena Vista, CO.

We met in the breakfast line on February 3rd, 2018. I saw a cute girl getting food, so I quickly ran over to make sure I could be next to her to introduce myself. That introduction started a 3 hour long conversation about skiing, fly fishing, our families, and Jesus. Later that night the group was country swing dancing. I wanted to make sure I found Anna and woo her over, not with my below average dancing ability, but my sheer confidence of being ok with publicly humiliating myself. I finally found her across the dance floor ready to dance with another man and with no hesitation I ran over and asked her to dance. Her current dance partner didn't know how to respond so I grabbed Anna's hand out of his and took off towards the middle of the dance floor. I must say, our first dance wasn't this "love at first sight moment." We were both awkwardly trying to act smooth when in all reality it was one big hot mess of a dance. It was a cute mess nonetheless. The dance concluded and we went our separate ways. Early Sunday morning everyone was packing up getting ready to head back to Fort Collins. I saw Anna with everything perfectly organized and ready to leave right on time. I knew I needed to confidently ask her for her number so we could stay in touch. After playing it in my head over and over again, I had the perfect and smooth plan. I finally pulled her aside and out of pure nervousness nothing went to plan. I asked for her "contact information”. Till this day I have no idea why she gave it to me but that was beside the point. After some highs and lows and lots of prayer and discernment, we officially started dating September 27th, 2018. In between then and now, Anna and I have had such a beautiful relationship. From traveling to New Zealand and back to spending countless days on the river floating through life, we are overwhelmingly thankful for all of our adventurous and fun moments. However, I must say this is not what made Anna and I's relationship what it is today.

What truly has made Anna and I's relationship today is our ability to work through our differences, and our ability to never give up on each other no matter what our pride is telling us. We are both very stubborn and stuck in our ways. We think we know what it takes to live a great life, while in reality neither of us know what the heck we are doing. But together we tackle this life head on knowing we have each other's back through the toughest of moments and a loving Father who leads us through troubled waters. That is what we believe to be true love. While I want to quickly get out of the house and go fishing, Anna makes me stop to ensure the house is tidy and neat so that we can come home to a place of order and peace after an amazing adventure. When Anna is over the top stressed with her perfectionist nature and not feeling good enough for Christ's love, I lovingly walk with her to remind her of her beauty and that nothing needs to be perfect for God to love us. He is perfect, not us. We are so thankful that God has matched us. My weaknesses are her strengths and her weaknesses are my strengths. Anna gives me the order, consistency, and structure I need, while I give Anna the work life balance she needs and push her to have a little more fun. We do this while bringing Jesus to each other and always keeping Him at the center. This is our love story. What a gift! We are excited to share with all of you.