In my opinion, there are 2 pretty significant memories that I have with Harp: how we met & the night we fell in love. In October 2016 I finally got out of retail & started a new job at a recruiting company called Aerotek. As a part of my onboarding process, my boss assigned me a mentor who sat in a different office. My mentor ended up being none other than, you guessed it, Harper! He reached out to me within my first couple of weeks to schedule lunch so we could get to know each other. Naturally after that first call with him I went straight to his Facebook to look at his photos &, needless to say, I liked what I saw. The day finally arrived for our first lunch together & Harper drove to my office to pick me up. I remember walking outside & seeing him in his black Ford Focus, which was hilarious because I also drove a black Ford Focus at the time. We went to a restaurant down the street & ordered some drinks. The waitress asked for our ID's and Harper frantically checked every pocket for his wallet - realizing soon that he had left it at his office. Not only did we not get our drinks, we ended up getting kicked out of the restaurant because it was 21+ only (& apparently we didn't look our age). We wound up at the Cheesecake Factory where we talked for over an hour & realized that we had a lot in common. Fast forward a few months, Harper invited me to my first McMenamins Edgefield concert to see Glass Animals. I had never even heard of them at the time, but of course I said yes because I love live music. We pre-gamed with a bottle of Barefoot Bubbly Pinot Gris & picked a spot on the lawn where we could lay out our blanket. As the sun went down, Glass Animals hit the stage. We stood toward the back of the venue where we had been sitting & about halfway through the first song I looked at Harper & said “do you want to push our way to the front?” Harper instantly said yes & we danced the night away. We fell in love with each other that night & the rest is history!

I met the love of my life through an old company we both worked at together, I was her mentor and was tasked with teaching her about the world of recruiting. Like any good mentor would, I offered to take her out to lunch so we could get to know each other better and go through some of the recruiting basics. Now, it's standard for the mentor to pick up the tab and expense the lunch through Aerotek, but I had forgotten my wallet that day. The first place we went to required you to be 21 years old because it was a bar/bistro and, of course, I didn't have my wallet so I didn't have my I.D. We got kicked out. and had a laugh about it, then drove on over to the Cheesecake Factory for some avocado egg roles and salads. I knew this girl was trouble from the beginning, we just connected in a way that was effortless. Conversation was just flying by and we completely forgot to cover anything about recruiting. We happily connected about our families, where we grew up and went to high school, past work details and just shared stories. The lunch seemed incredibly too short, but I had to get her back to the office before people got curious. At Aerotek, everyone is curious. She absolutely took my breath away and I knew that I had to see her again soon.

It was Shelby's 30th birthday weekend and Harper and Shelby had rented a house at the Oregon Coast to celebrate with a group of friends. On Friday, they left early to take the dogs to run around on the beach before meeting up with their friends at the Airbnb. They went to their favorite spot at Pacific City where you can drive your car onto the beach. When they got there, it was cloudy and looked like it was about to rain. After about 20 minutes of being on the beach playing with the dogs, the clouds broke and the sun came out. Harper got out his phone and started taking pictures of him and Shelby, and the dogs, claiming that it was such a big weekend he wanted to make sure to document it. He then started recording and stuck his phone on top of our bags in the trunk of his car. The two were hanging out behind the car having a couple of drinks and talking about how excited they were for the weekend. Before Shelby knew it, Harper was down on one knee asking her to spend forever with him. The best part was that it was such a special moment just between the two of them and Harper was able to get it all on video!