We first started dating in May of 2019 just after Hannah graduated from NDSU. Neither of us went on the date expecting anything but we quickly realized there was something special going on. Our first Fargo date: Teaberry Our first St. Paul Date: Snuffy's

After a couple of dates, we realized we wanted to make things official.

Despite how soon we were into our relationship, we decided to give long distance a try when Hannah accepted a new job in California. Though we spend about 9 months almost 2000 miles away, we passed the time on FaceTime, making cross country visits, and dreaming about life when we closed the distance.

After excitedly planning out our spring break 2020 plans, we were bummed when everything in the San Francisco Bay Area started closing down. Within the week, the whole country began lockdown and Will was unexpectedly stuck in California until May. Our impromptu move-in trial run was filled with Eyja house dinners, Costco trips, TikToks, and dogsitting. At the end of May, we road-tripped from Palo Alto to Moorhead to move Hannah back and spend the summer in Minnesota before starting long-distance round 2.

Long-distance was so much fun the first time we thought we would add 2000 more miles for round 2 ;) Hannah started graduate school in Hawai'i and Will finished up school at MSUM. Despite the distance, we made time for nightly FaceTime calls, driving anxiety pep talks, and lots of Among Us and Switch games.

After graduation, Will moves to Hawai'i and we start our lives together! On August 16th, 2021 we adopted our first dog, Garu (left) and on December 13th, 2021 we added Adelaide June (Addie for short) to the family!

Doing things the traditional way has never really been our style. Our engagement is no different since we technically decided to start wedding planning together before we were even officially engaged. Although we already had the date picked out and logistics were starting to come together, Will still made our "official" engagement special by taking an evening walk to the UH campus koi pond, buying some sunflowers and sparkling juice, and formally asking to start our next chapter together.