We're tying the knot!

We met in college. Patrick had just begun his time at Palmer Chiropractic and Theryn was about ready to graduate from Embry-Riddle. Our first meet up was at a coffee shop and our first official date was at Leanh's Chinese Restaurant in South Daytona Beach in November of 2020. The first year and a half of our relationship was spent mostly together in Florida with short intermissions for an internship in Kansas and some much-needed downtime in Rhode Island. Then in November 2021, Theryn accepted a job offer in Kansas and moved to Wichita in June of 2022. From there, the countdown to Patrick's graduation began. Thankfully, in the age of cell phones we were able to talk daily. We'd FaceTime every night before bed, text intermittently throughout the day, and plan trips to get to see each other. Patrick graduated from Palmer in December 2023 and accepted a job in Wichita as well. Patrick officially moved to Wichita in February 2024. We spent our first year in Wichita growing into the post-college versions of ourselves together living in a small town just outside Wichita. We spent the early part of 2025 planning trips to explore more of the central US and got engaged in July 2025 on our trip to Colorado Springs over the 4th of July weekend. We also travelled to Paris, France in November 2025 for our first ever international trip together! We can't wait to write this next chapter. And we're so excited for everyone to be part of it.

As a lot of people know, proposing is stressful. It's even more stressful when you're proposing to someone who spoils surprises regularly just by shear nature of who they are. So, when Patrick was gearing up to propose he had to have Theryn's friends and family running interference big time to keep her from spoiling the surprise. The proposal was set for a meadow in the Garden of the Gods (picked by family friends of the Compoc Ohana) and the date was picked. The drive out to Colorado Springs from Wichita was uneventful, but the only variable was whether or not the altitude (almost mile high) would have an adverse effect on Patrick. Theryn spent the majority of the first day almost drowning Patrick in water and Liquid IV. We went to a baseball game and watched the fireworks light up the sky, then headed to bed so we could embark on a trek through Garden of the Gods before it got too hot. The morning of, Patrick was a wreck. Since Theryn's friends and family did such a good job running interference, Theryn assumed Patrick was having altitude sickness. She suggested staying in, doing a driving tour of the Garden, and definitely NOT completing a hike. But Patrick was insistent (...duh) and so off we went. The trek began with Theryn almost blowing the whole surprise by recognizing the photographer but not saying anything because "What if it's not her?". We made it past a small group, Patrick asked for a selfie, and he dropped down on one knee. But Theryn didn't assume proposal. Theryn assumed Patrick was succumbing to the altitude and was immediately clearing her hands and trying to remember what she learned in lifeguard training as a teenager. But of course it was a proposal, and once she realized what was happening, she said yes!