We first met in September, 2022, at Skål Beer Hall, a Viking-inspired hangout in Seattle's Ballard neighborhood. There, we shared food, mead flights, and conversation, and we parted ways with skips to our steps and plans for a second date just a few days later. Ballard became a special place for us; we now own a house there, not too far from Skål, and we still enjoy stopping by there now and then for our fourth- or fifth-hundred dates. Our first kiss was in Georgetown. We spent the afternoon exploring that neighborhood, wandering around from place to place and talking until the sun was long gone with so many words still to say. One prophetic stranger, when we walked past them, called out to us about how cute we looked as a couple. We weren't officially one yet, so we laughed it off, but in reflection, that's the day we became one. The time following was a melding of lives and first-meetings of friends, siblings, and parents through board-game nights, parties, and neighborhood crawls. Trenton first met Geneva's parents during her little niece's birthday party, amidst the churning and roiling chaos of gathered toddlers, while he was fresh off a sickness, fog-headed but determined all the same. Geneva met Trenton's parents during a Mariners game, in the thick of tumultuous throes of a passionate sports crowd, politely navigating his and his dad's screams to make conversation. Both meetings miraculously went well. Every couple eventually must traverse the Rite of Plane Travel. Our first flight together was to visit a friend outside of Seattle. It was a wonderful trip that involved, among many things, thoroughly playing with said friend's dog. Trenton would comment passively - here, and many times before - about how he had always wanted to adopt one, and certainly would eventually, soon, one day. Geneva, actionable and with rolling eyes, scheduled our next weekend to visit the Seattle Humane Shelter. Two weeks later, we adopted our sweetheart Pyrenese-Collie mix, Callie, and we had graduated from a couple to a family. We got engaged in December, 2024. Trenton disguised the proposal as an ordinary date night at Mox Boarding House, a board game cafe that we enjoy. He had hidden a sealed letter - one of several - inside one of the games we checked out, for Geneva to find. That letter took us back to Skål, where another such letter was found. These letters guided us through Ballard, where we had first met, and where we now call our home, touching on all the things we loved to do together, and finally to one of its parks near the bay. Here, in a quiet corner of greenery, under an overgrown garden arch, was a final letter with a question. She said yes.