We met through mutual friends during our first year at UC Davis, and lived in the same dorm building. We got to know each other through Mario Kart, Halo, and late-night Nerf gun fights in the common room. It was about a year before Willis started asking me out. I didn't agree until his third attempt. He had set up a cute picnic at the UCD Arboretum, in front of the lake on a grassy hill. No one but my mother had ever made me a sandwich before, so I had to say yes. Since then we've been together for about eight years, and have learned a lot about ourselves and each other in process. We've rescued a stray cat from our apartment dumpster (some of you know her as Dusty), moved (from apartment to house to condo to condo) together four times, and have adopted a puppy together (the vivacious Kelsie). Now we're going to make growing old together official.

The proposal happened at the Marin Headlands on March 18th of 2017. We hiked up the hill with Kelsie on a nice afternoon, and while I knew it was happening, I didn't know how it was going to happen. Willis had hidden my engagement ring on Kelsie's collar as we walked up and once we were at the top we took a moment to admire the view, he told me to check Kelsie's collar as it had "gotten loose". I absentmindedly said it was fine, so he got on one knee, took the ring off her collar and... I can't say what exactly he said to me because I completely blacked out. In the end, I was just surprised I hadn't noticed my ring dangling from our dog's collar all the way up. I was glad she was able to play a big part in such a special moment, and was so happy to find that a couple of our good friends also got engaged on the same day!