My first interaction with Lisa was on December 10, 2018—her first day at HealthPoint. My colleague, Deanna, needed some help that morning and asked me to take photos of the new providers for their ID badges. I took Lisa’s photo along with a handful of other providers who were starting that day. Later, I came back to drop off the badges and asked if they needed some sweet treats. Of course, Lisa said yes to the chocolates I had at my desk and some ube cheesecake that a coworker had made that day. I also told Lisa and the other new providers to complete their HealthPoint bios, since I was responsible for posting the provider bios on the website. Weeks later, Lisa was the only person from that training who still hadn’t completed hers. I reached out to her a handful of times by email. Her clinic was bugging me, so naturally, I kept bugging her. After about a month of reminders, she finally submitted her bio. In it, she wrote: “My special interests include cooking, national parks, road trips, ice cream, hiking the PNW, and spending time with family and friends.” Almost immediately after she submitted her bio, I thanked her and asked about her favorite national parks. I tried to keep things professional at first and see where the conversation would go. Let it be known that Lisa was *very* slow to respond to my emails, so I initially assumed she wasn’t interested. After many emails back and forth, we eventually transitioned to personal email, where she was still impressively slow to respond. I still wasn’t sure if she was truly interested, but I wanted to show her that I was listening and interested in getting to know her. When she was sick, I mailed a can of my favorite Progresso soup to her office, which earned me the nickname “Soup Guy” from her colleagues. After three days of texting, we finally scheduled our first date for April 18, 2019, at Heyday in Seattle. Lisa picked the restaurant—it was between Heyday and Super Six. For our first date, I made restaurant experience rating cards, which we had joked about over text, and baked her homemade peanut chocolate chip cookies. After dinner, I drove Lisa to get ice cream at Molly Moon’s. On the way there, she ate one of my cookies and proclaimed, “These are actually good.” To this day, Lisa says those are her favorite cookies that I make. After hundreds of batches of cookies, we still joke that my cookies are “actually good.” When it came time to choose where to propose, I knew I had to include a national park. National parks were one of the things that first connected us, so I wanted one to be part of the next chapter of our story, too.

I met Chris on my first day of work as a nurse practitioner at HealthPoint. He was assigned to take our badge photos and, always acutely aware of people’s food needs, made sure we survived orientation by dropping off candy and cake. Chris was also responsible for collecting new providers’ biographies for the company website. After multiple requests to submit mine, I finally did it (begrudgingly). In my bio, I mentioned that I enjoyed visiting national parks, which sparked a series of emails between us—yes, emails. It quickly became clear that we had quite a few shared interests. During our email phase, Chris inter office mailed me a can of his favorite Progresso soup when I was sick, earning him the nickname "Soup Guy." Not long after, Chris went on a service trip to Nepal with Habitat for Humanity. I decided to shoot my shot and asked him to drinks so I could hear all about his trip. I did show up 15 minutes late to our first date, but luckily, Chris came prepared with fresh chocolate peanut butter chip cookies he had made. I was immediately smitten. One date quickly turned into two, and before I knew it, we were building a life filled with adventure, laughter, and countless memories together. Since then, we’ve visited 21 national parks and counting, with a goal of eventually visiting them all. What started with an email, a can of soup, and some very good cookies has led us here—engaged and excited for our next adventure together.