We are getting married!

Alex & Chris met on the dating app, Bumble, in April 2017. For the first date they met at a local tap house for a single beer. Once Alex decided Chris was not a total waste of time (as many dating app first dates are), she invited him to go up the street for fried chicken at a dive bar.

Both Alex & Chris have loved exploring the world. Alex studied abroad numerous times through out high school and college in China, Ecuador, and Spain. Chris traveled internationally in college for service trips and then around South America for six weeks in between jobs in his early 20's. Travel is important to both us, therefore, it was important for us to experience travel with each other. For our six month anniversary we traveled to Costa Rica for two weeks and realized that our travel styles compliment each other perfectly. Alex is most definitely the planner (as if that would surprise anyone who knows her), but Chris's ability for flexibility served well when a hurricane caused mudslides preventing us from getting into a city we had planned to visit forcing us to alter our trip on the fly.

We adopted Banjo in November 2017 and quickly learned how to co-parent our first fur baby. Despite some initial behavioral challenges, Banjo has settled quite nicely into his new life with us.

To celebrate our upcoming career path changes and because we love to explore, we spent 17 days driving around the entirety of ring road in Iceland. We hiked to some amazing waterfalls, soaked in hot springs, ate incredible fish dishes, and went whale watching!

Chris left his job as an engineer for Skanska and started grass seed farming with his dad. Alex started her accelerated Bachelor of Science in Nursing program. This led to 16 months of distance dating while Chris was in Lebanon and Alex remained in Portland for school. Banjo split his time between both locations but ultimately settled for his life as a farm dog where he is extremely content to wander the fields and bark at the birds.

After a short period of looking for our first home to purchase, we found our perfect place right along the Willamette River. We are so grateful that we were able to purchase our first home while Alex was still in nursing school. We have many grand ideas on ways to improve our home and are excited to begin making some changes.

Alex & Chris adventured to Germany and Switzerland to experience Christmas markets and the Swiss Alps. On our second to last day of the two week trip, Alex & Chris took numerous trains and cableways up to the Rothorn viewpoint of the Matterhorn. At the top, Alex was taking pictures while Chris dug out a small brown paper wrapped box, which happened to be a stunning engagement ring, that he presented to her as a belated "Christmas gift". Of course, she said yes! They hiked down the mountain stopping a beautiful ski chalet, Chez Vrony, for lunch with a stunning view of the Matterhorn (see photo below).