We first met at the Sandmann's cabin on Dumbbell Lake on Memorial Day weekend 2017. There was something about Mike that immediately intrigued me but that was all the further things went at that point. After that weekend we only saw each other a couple times while I was visiting Carly until Memorial Day 2019. That weekend I had drove up to the cabin from central Wisconsin and had a slight "incident" with my car (not the fire... that was another time... another vehicle...) that prevented me from being able to drive it back to school. I was stressed because I had to work Tuesday morning but had no way of getting back to school. At this, despite only meeting me a couple times prior, Mike promptly offered to drive me from the cabin back to Stevens Point so I could make it to work on time. This meant 10 hours of driving in one day for someone he barely knew. For the next couple years Carly and I continued to spend more time together (COVID definitely helped with this) and her and Isaac played matchmaker for us. Mike was a little resistant to this but eventually gave it a go. We had dated for a few months in the fall of 2020 but ultimately broke up because a relationship just wasn't in the cards for us at that time. Through this we continued talking and growing our friendship until he finally gave in at the end of February 2021 following an ice fishing trip at The Fowls in the Boundary Waters. We were cleaning fish in his mom's kitchen (don't worry Becky, we made sure there were no scales left behind!) after the trip when we started talking about the last few months and realized "just friends" was not going to last. We both wanted more. We dated as secretly as possible for a couple months to figure it out before cluing everyone in until Mike started introducing me to his friends as his "girlfriend" instead of sticking with his usual "this is Alex" on April 2nd, 2021. Since then we have made long distance work, rented a small 2 bedroom house, got a dog, moved to Silver Bay, started updating our house (talk about a relationship tester), enjoyed many fishing trips, and so much more. All this lead up to May 17th, 2025 when I was dancing like a fool to Shania Twain's "Don't Be Stupid" in our kitchen when Mike walked up behind me, reached his hands around me and said "So what do you think? Wanna get married?" When I looked down he was holding the most perfect ring and I immediately yelled "yes!" and jumped around for a while. Which brings us to this point! We are so grateful to all of you who have supported our relationship through its ups and downs. We love you all and cannot wait to celebrate the start of the rest of our lives with you!