It was Olivia's senior year and Ayren's junior year in high school when they first met. Ayren moved to Pocola and joined the band. They both distinctly remember one football game where they talked to each other every break they had and realized they had a lot in common. That was probably the moment they first started developing an interest in each other. Olivia decided to text Ayren after a college tour visit one day. They had only really been talking for a week before their friends found out they both liked each other and then became encouragers for the relationship. It was the last day of band camp and Olivia was helping to pick up trash on the practice field, when Ayren decided to come over and help her. They walked for a bit before he finally asked her, "Do you want to make this official?", in his goofy awkward way and of course she said yes. When they walked back into the band room everybody was so excited that they basically put Ayren in the middle of a mosh pit to celebrate. Later that evening, Olivia invited him to go see the movie 'It' with a group of friends. It wasn't necessarily a date, but the first movie they went to together Ayren just watched Olivia hide her eyes with the brim of her hat. In hindsight, it probably wasn't the best idea for two people who hate horror movies to go to a horror movie, but at least it makes for a funny memory.

Zoom forward 3 and a half years, after a rough year of college due to all the COVID events, we wanted to take a vacation and celebrate getting through that. Ayren found a great deal on tickets to New York, so he immediately booked them and surprised me with them. It was the second day on this trip that we decided to go to Roosevelt Island, which compared to the actual city, was extremely peaceful and quiet. We were walking along the riverfront looking out towards the city when I sat down on a bench to look up some places to get lunch. He sat down with me at first and when he stood up I was very confused as to what he was doing. Honestly, I don't remember too much of what he said, but what I do remember was him talking about that hopefully this is one of many adventures we get to experience together. When he knelt down on one knee I still thought he was joking until he actually pulled out the ring box. If there were cameras, they probably would have gotten a great reaction shot. I was extremely excited! He started tearing up which also made me tear up and it was just an all around emotional moment for us. After I took a few pictures of him and the ring, we both called our families to talk to them, who were equally excited. I then spent the entire day playing 100 questions with him in order to get all the details of him planning it. That whole week I just kept checking to make sure the ring was there because I was still so surprised that it had actually happened.

I had thoughts in my head for a long time that I wanted to propose. I really didn’t know exactly when though. Sometime during February 2021, I decided to “window shop” plane tickets. My original focus was geared towards international flights, but Covid-19 made that feel impossible. After a couple minutes of browsing, I found the perfect flights to NYC! I immediately messaged Olivia and asked her for some basic information whilst leaving out the true purpose of the message. A couple of days passed since I had booked the flights and I had a realization. This would be the perfect time and place to propose. We both love traveling and I thought that Roosevelt Island was the perfect place for it. It’s quiet and peaceful compared to the hustle that is NYC. The amount of times that Olivia almost found the ring was frightening. One time, I had placed the ring box in my desk drawer. Liv had just came over and needed something out of my desk. She pulled open the drawer and I *calmly and inconspicuously* pushed the ring box out of sight. *Phew*. The day was perfect; clear skies and nice weather. We had just arrived onto Roosevelt island. We decided to walk around the perimeter of the island. After a bit, we wanted to decide on lunch. We sat down at a nearby bench and she started looking on her phone. My hands were extremely shaky at this point. My nerves had been firing on all cylinders since I had woken up. I got up from the bench, and said to myself, “GOOOOOOOOOO”. I turned to her, pulled out the ring box, and got down on one knee. Now is the part where I get to say my well-thought out speech right? Nope. My mind went completely blank, so I said what I felt in the moment. I think she thought I was joking at first, but I will never forget that look in her eyes whenever she realized what was happening. It’s the little things that will last forever. My hands were still a little shaky after-the-fact, but I had just started the next chapter with the love of my life.