On May 6th of 2022, Nathan was at his new home in Fort Campbell, TN when he came across someone special on Hinge. They matched instantly. Courtney at the time, just returned home from a girls trip in Nashville that was pretty close in proximity to Nathan's location. It took some time once they matched on the app for Nathan to finally muster the courage to reach out. The first question he sent her was "wanna get married?" She replied, "if only it was that easy." That's when their story began. They facetimed almost every day for the next month in between Nathan's military training and Courtney studying for her nursing board exam. They quickly realized how compatible they were. By June, Nathan came up with a road trip idea (PowerPoint and all) so that they could finally meet in person. Courtney, being the adventurer she is, accepted the first date since she had just passed her nursing board exam and had some time on her hands. On June 18th, Nathan made the long-awaited stop in Nebraska to meet Courtney and her family. He must have made a good enough impression because the next morning, he and Courtney embarked on their 7,000mi / 24-day journey around the northern half of the United States. Nathan’s 2006 Honda Pilot had faithfully taken them through 10 national parks and 14 major cities - Zion NP, Seattle and Glacier NP to name a few. Courtney & Nathan drove countless hours together, tent camped in many parks, hiked on tons of trails and car camped overnight in a Walmart parking lot once or twice. Nathan attempted to asked Courtney to be his girlfriend about one week into the trip, but she rejected him. He made a comeback when she changed her mind in Oregon and decided to date him on June 26th, 2022. Nearing the end of their journey on July 4th, they arrived to Nathan's parents’ house. They hosted the couple for a few more days to get to know Courtney until they safely made it to Tennessee by July 10th. Unfortunately, as soon as Nathan got back, he received news that he would be deploying to Europe for 3 months. Reality set in for the both of them as this was the start of their long-distance relationship. However, this wouldn't slow them down as they continued to text, call and experience life together, even from 5,000 miles away. In the meantime, Courtney began her labor & delivery nursing career and Nathan kept deploying with the 101st Airborne Division. After his second trip to Europe in 2023 (9-months this time), she moved to Tennessee to be with him when he returned and finally closed the long-distance portion of their relationship after 18 months of dating. Since July of 2022, Nathan had gone on three deployments and been away from Courtney for 424 days in total. This experience led them to believe that they could do anything together. The moment Nathan knew he wanted to marry Courtney was when she insisted on rescuing a 3-week-old kitten from walking into the road. They scooped him (munchkin) up, bought tons of kitten supplies and did their best to take care of him for the 16 hours they had him overnight. Unfortunately, he was suffering a severe sickness and didn't make it to the following day to be taken to the humane society for further care. However, the experience brought them together like never before. Courtney knew Nathan was different from any other man she had met from the start. He was so patient, respectful and very detail oriented. She fell in love with his caring ways and emotional heart. The first compliment he ever gave Courtney was, she was going to be a great mother one day. She had never received such a heartfelt compliment. She saw how every complication they faced Nathan would approach it as a we problem rather than a individual problem. That was something she always hoped for in a person and knew he was the one. During a weekend trip to Savannah on August 24, 2024, he took her to Forsyth Park and asked her to marry him (for real this time) - without any hesitation, she said yes!