Like everyone these days, we met through our village matchmaker. She sagely believed our separate loves of dogs and people watching would serve us well forever. We are forever thankful for her wisdom. But really, of course we met online on a possibly defunct dating app.

We took a trip to Queens to see Lauren's first husband choice, Roger Federer, at the US Open. There were some ups (Federer won) and downs (John debated succumbing to heat stroke) but overall a successful day that paved the way for the next few years.

We moved into a seemingly spacious one bedroom that we planned to use as a home base for a few years of continued exploration of Philadelphia. Surely nothing could make us regret choosing a one bedroom with a lovely view the back alley of the Merriam Theater...

John took an impromptu day off with Lauren on a brisk fall Monday to tour the various pet shops in Philly. We stumble upon a puppy and she suckers us into getting her two days later. We're fairly certain she somehow genetically engineered the next stop on our timeline.

Welp. We were suddenly in each others company every day, all day, for about 15 months. We handled extreme cohabitation pretty well and though it delayed the next event, we knew if we made it through this we could make it through just about anything.

Three-ish years from our first date, John was incredibly determined to take the dog for a hike before we had our "anniversary" dinner that night. The first stop was unfortunately experiencing record rainfall that day so we detoured to Ridley Creek State Park. We had a quick, relatively dry, extremely humid hike while John scouted out a good quiet location. Penny provided the perfect cover - getting extremely aggravated by a leaf floating down a creek, threatening to dive in the water and attack it - giving John plenty of time to take out the ring and to get down on one knee. One more surprise was in store when we went to a restaurant for a surprise meet up with Alan (John's brother), Joanna (Lauren's cousin), and her husband, Nate, for a celebratory dinner.