After briefly being aquatinted with each other when they were about 10 or 11 years old, Astrid and Oren met again a few years later, when they were 14 and 15. At that time, Oren started working as a dishwasher at The Wooden Spoon, where Astrid worked as one of the bakers. Astrid’s younger brother, Ezra, soon started a friendship with Oren, and when the two would spend time together, Astrid would join in when she could, in order to get to know Oren better. Oren and Astrid started flirting with each other and during those first few weeks and months of noticing each other at the restaurant, they clearly were falling in love. They continued to express their interest in each other anytime they were together. At practices for their mountain biking team, they would find ways to get a few minutes to talk and hangout by taking a few extra cool down laps when practice was over. The Carte and Allen families would often play basketball together on Monday nights. After one of those nights, Oren hugged Astrid for the first time and gave her a handmade flower press that he made, and her favorite candy (which actually never got eaten and is still tucked away somewhere safe as a keepsake). They had both known they wanted to have an official relationship for months, until one Friday night at The Wooden Spoon, on August 19th, 2022, they sat on the roof of the restaurant and Oren started the conversation to discuss where their relationship was going. Fun fact: Astrid and Oren wrote many long letters to each other in their early years, and one thing Astrid wrote about was saving her first kiss for when she gets married. During those years of getting to know each other well, and loving each other more through every season, there were many discussions of whether or not they wanted to keep waiting, or just stop waiting and kiss already since they already knew for a long while that they wanted to get married one day. The couple decided to keep waiting, but instead of waiting for their wedding day, they wanted to have their first kiss be private. They then decided to save their first kiss for the day they got engaged. After many years of waiting, praying, mountain bike racing, backpacking, attending weddings for siblings, among many other things that went on during the past few years, Oren proposed to Astrid on New Year’s Eve 2025.