We're so excited to celebrate with you!

Thien and I met on my first day of work at COMP-Northwest. He gave me my IT orientation while I nervously tried to remember where the start menu and the search bar were. While I was in a lonely office across the street from the main building, I made several attempts to spark conversation with my handsome coworker who was forced to occupy the space with me while working on abandoned computers. Unfortunately, his defenses were too strong, and my attacks were met with short answers and long silences. One day, I received an instant message from a lady I didn’t recognize at work. I opened the chat window, and to my surprise it wasn’t a lady at all! It was an older photo of Thien with long hair. He was messaging me to share travel tips for my upcoming work trip (…so he had been listening). From then on, we started messaging periodically, and eventually ended up inviting ourselves on another co-worker's trip to Crater Lake (thanks Luke!). We talked and laughed for the full 8-hour drive, both knowing that we were going to be close friends. Later, Thien would admit that this trip was when he knew we were meant to be together. It was also when he became determined to make us a couple. This time his attacks (attempts at romance) were blocked by my defense of friendship. Thankfully, my defenses weakened over time, and one day I saw that he had repotted my office plant, which likely wouldn’t have survived much longer in my care. It was then that I knew I had romantic feelings for him too. Our office romance was very secretive (*everyone knew*) and there were whispers and gasps when we came as a couple to the COMP-Northwest holiday party (*no one cared*). And the rest was history!