Sam and I first met during a virtual retreat at the Newman Center during COVID. Sam was in a random prayer group with some of my friends. He hung out with us on a Newman hike and we would hang out in groups at Newman. I invited Sam to a party I was throwing right before school ended for the summer and I started to develop a crush on Sam. We hung out with some of our close friends and went on a few “dates” before school ended. I say “dates” because Sam and I have no idea when we started dating as we really didn’t know if these dates before school ended was going to lead to anything. Then summer came and he went back to Illinois. We talked on Zoom for hours every night and we started to fall in love. Sam actually said “I love you” for the first time over Zoom. When Sam came back to Tucson for his sophomore year we were always together. I was in my first year of teaching and if I had a bad day I wanted him there and when I had good days I wanted to celebrate with him. Our love grew quickly and he became my person. This summer we had been talking about getting married and I thought I had figured out his plan but I did not. Sam surprised me with a trip to Mt. Lemmon and we went to a look out spot that I took him to for one of our first “dates”. He proposed and I had no idea it was happening. The rest is history. And I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with Sam