About damn time.

It all started back in 2004. Each of our dads signed us up to participate in our local community service project after flooding devastated the area. Being of similar age, we were partnered together to bag and tag sand. We spent the entire day throwing sand at each other, make the evening news, then head our separate ways. Five years later, at a mutual friend's graduation party, we unknowingly reconnect. Skylar takes me to meet his dad, and in Steve's backyard, it hits me. I turn to Skylar and say, "This is going to sound really strange, but do you recall a few years ago during a community service event being partnered with a random girl?" Skylar looks at me, his eyes go wide and he says, "That was you?" Fate dropkicked me right in the face. "That was me." Over the next nine years, life took us in different directions. We remained good friends, supporting each other through various trials and victories, and through international and national moves. Fate decided to make one final appearance, this time through the form of a marriage. Kate (Skylar's mom) married Tom, a good family friend of my cousin Kate and her husband Dusty. It was through the two Kates that we both came to learn of the connection. When Skylar moved back from Wyoming, (cousin) Kate went to work playing matchmaker. All it took was her telling me, "Skylar has been asking about you" (that was a lie, sort of). My curiosity got the better of me. All it took was three dates and the rest is history.

When we were 17 and seniors in high school, we went to see the Dropkick Murphys at a tiny hole-in-the-wall venue in Kansas City. We learned in early 2022 that Dropkick Murphys were touring nearby a couple weeks shy of our third anniversary. We booked our tickets and headed to Omaha. At dinner, Skylar tells me that we need to hurry up and finish our food and drinks so we can get to the venue with enough time to see the first act. At this point, we have about an hour before the show begins, but I digress, we pay our tab then Google our walking route to the venue. Somewhere in the middle of the walk on a random side street, Skylar tells me to slow down, then stop, no less than three times. In my head, I'm thinking, "You told me that we had to hurry up and get to the venue so no, I will not slow down, nor will I stop." I feel him stop but I keep walking. He says, "Sara, no really, stop." I pause, only to see two individuals in front of me going wide-eyed with confused looks on their face. I whip around and Skylar is on one knee. We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming to bring you this important preface. Skylar has had this thing where he has fake proposed to me multiple times over the last two years. Each time, more elaborate, more obvious, yet it was only extra practice in preparation for the "big event". I've always told him that he would get his real answer when he produced a ring. Now back to your regularly scheduled programming. I begin laughing thinking Skylar is doing this grand practice run on our anniversary. But then I begin processing his words, "I'm sorry, I couldn't wait any longer. Will you marry me?" It takes a moment. But then I see the ring and it clicks. My laughing turns to emotional hysterics mixed with laughter and the first and only thought that pops into my head is, "Oh my God, you f**king d**k." I scurry over to him in a daze, grab the ring and put it on my finger, then help Skylar up. My brain is in go mode so I immediately start walking to the venue just staring and reeling in the fact that we're engaged, we're going to get married. A couple minutes go by before Skylar pipes up, "So, I'm really gonna need that answer now. Is that a yes? You never answered." I smile, fighting back tears and say, "That's a yes." My apologies to those poor people in Omaha who saw the most non-traditional proposal; I hope it was as memorable for you as it was for us. We've been fighting fate for the last 18 years before we threw in the white flag. We want to thank our friends and family for the endless love and support and we can't wait to celebrate our wedding with you.