When Marissa tasked me with writing our story I was kind of shocked, but here goes nothing. The reason that I titled this, "I Should've Known" is because the night that I asked Marissa to be my girlfriend something very unexpected happened. I asked her to be my girlfriend, it was 11:59 PM on the 12th of October, 2018. 5-10 minutes passed and I started to feel a little queasy. I then proceeded to throw up everything I had eaten previously that night. The only conclusion that I have been able to come up with after almost 7 years (at the time of me writing this) is that I should've taken this as a sign from God. Either he was telling me to run away as fast as possible and maybe even leave the country, or he was letting me know that I had made a decision that was going to somewhat curse me for eternity. I am obviously joking! All jokes aside, asking Marissa to be my girlfriend that night turned my whole life and future around for the better. She is the most selfless person I have ever met, and she loves people in ways I never knew were possible. I didn't know it at the time, but on October 12th, 2018 at 11:59 PM, I made one of the best decisions of my life. Thank you for taking the time to read my perspective on how Marissa and I started our lives together. If you're reading this, you more than likely had an impact on one of our lives, and we appreciate you dearly and cannot wait to celebrate us, with you!

5.27.2024 The morning Joe proposed was no different from any other morning for us. We both had the day off for Memorial Day and had no further plans to fill our day. Joe had told me that my brother Grant and his fiancée Hailey, suggested going to a movie with us. I'm never one to turn down a movie. Looking back at it now, there were a lot of signs I missed. One example was when Joe asked, "Are you going to wear that to the movie or are you going to change?" Now, Joe has not once in almost 7 years of our relationship asked me if I had any intention of changing my outfit for any occasion. So when he asked me this, I did think it was odd, but never thought too much about it. When the movie was over and we were all walking back to the car, Joe suggested getting our dog, Coco, and picking up my brother's dog to take them to Rickman's Run (a dog park). I'm obsessed with my dog, so of course I was also down for this. We picked up my brother's dog, and then we went to our apartment to grab Coco. Joe told me before we went inside that I would get Coco loaded up in my car, and he would get the new frisbee we bought for her earlier that day. We all sat in my car with our dogs for 5-7 minutes. I'm not a patient person, so I was getting antsy. As I was about to go in to see what was taking him so long, he started walking outside. We arrived, and I pulled into the wrong side of the park. We had both of the dogs unloaded and were all set to start walking when Joe changed his mind. He suggested we drive to the other side of the road so we could go to the dog park where the dogs wouldn't need a leash. My impatience was rising at this point. After walking around for a bit, we all got to an open area with the dogs. Joe thought this spot was adequate enough to bust out Coco's frisbee. He threw the frisbee once and told Coco to bring it to me, but she was too excited and started running away. Joe chased her down quickly and grabbed the frisbee to throw it again. He threw the frisbee once more and told Coco to bring it to me, to which she surprisingly did. I grabbed the frisbee off the ground and thought it looked different from when we had bought it earlier, so I started to inspect it. On the frisbee was written, "Will you marry me?" As I brought the frisbee down, I saw the man of my dreams asking me to marry him with the most gorgeous ring I have ever seen in my life! Joseph could not have done a better job of making the day a real-life dream. Coco even approved by taking the frisbee and submerging it completely in the dirty stream water. Needless to say, she will not be getting the frisbee back for obvious reasons.