We met for the first time at the Great River Landing in Onalaska. Ty was cool calm and collected and Natalie was nervous! We walked and talked for hours and both agreed that we felt like best friends who forgot to meet when they were kids. We both were absolutely struck that a Mennonite boy who grew up in northern Alberta would ever meet a "city" girl who grew up in southeast Wisconsin.

We both agreed that our summer felt picture perfect! We spent almost every weekend together which we were impressed by since we lived 6.5 hours apart! Ty made the drive almost every weekend and we went to baseball games, paddleboarding, golfing and hiking. (Yes, Ty liked Natalie so much that he hiked.) Ty met the Jorde's late July and although he was nervous it took only a minute to realize that Natalie was right: he wouldn't struggle to tell her and Alicia apart!

Fall came around and we were confident that we wanted to keep diving in and getting to know each other. The schedule shifted though and Natalie started making the drive out to the farm in South Dakota. We followed the same routine almost every weekend: Natalie would get to the farm Friday night and put dinner in a lunchbox. She would then try and navigate to whatever field they were in on the 7,000 acre farm. We would eat supper in the combine and harvest late into the night. Saturdays we would get to have breakfast together and then Natalie would eventually meet Ty out in the field again. She only got lost a few times all season!

After harvest was done, Ty came to Onalaska to spend a few weeks here. We got to spend time with Natalie's parents, go to a Minnesota Wild game and Green Bay Packer game at Lambeau. There was a good and new shift in growing closer together and we also got more excited to celebrate Christmas with the Jorde's and then go up to La Crete.  On December 27 we met in Calgary, AB and then drove the 9+ hours north to La Crete, AB, Ty's hometown. Natalie was delighted to feel so included and at home immediately at the Driedger's. We spend about a week with the whole Driedger family and visiting/meeting friends before driving down for a day of skiing and snowboarding in Banff in the Canadian Rockys before Natalie had to fly back to the states.  January through March we were apart and spent many hours on facetime as Ty worked in the bush doing reclaimation work on oil leases. Most days we had no contact and then would get a quick Facetime call before bed. The occasional text that went through when Ty could connect to someone's StarLink was a gift!

Ty returned to the states late March to go back to work at the farm in South Dakota. He was able to come visit Natalie though before work really started to roll which was sweet time for us as we talked more about our future.

One thing that we had talked about was Natalie's desire for Ty to ask her dad for her hand in marriage. Ty felt no different! We know we're fully grown adults but also feel and respect the role our families play :) Ty was working up the courage to do the three hardest things: ask Doug, buy a ring, and ask Natalie.  He was sabotaged though when Doug got sick with a horrible cold. He held off planning to ask a few days later. The day he and Doug had planned to go to Doug's farm in Houston to work on some things (and then Ty would ask!) we got a call that Doug had gone into the clinic. He found out pretty quickly that he had detached his retina and needed surgery that would require weeks of face down recovery. That night we laughed as Natalie tried to coach Ty that it wouldn't be a big deal to just stick his face under the massage table her dad would be recovering on and say "Can I marry your daughter?" After weeks of Doug's recovery, Ty finally got the chance to ask Doug (while he was sitting upright!) and that afternoon took Natalie out to Doug's farm just to do some putsing around and asked Natalie to marry him. She said yes!