Eric and Alice met at a Halloween party at Vassar College in 2011. Alice was dressed up as a demon, and Eric was dressed as a vampire. There had been a freakish early snowstorm that year, and Eric sneezed on his way to the party and lost one of his fake fangs in a snowbank. Alice had drawn a scary demon face on herself with art markers. They both distinctly remember seeing the other across the room and thinking "wow, that person is way out of my league".

They did eventually start talking, and discovered a mutual love of video games, art, history, and technology, among other things. Alice gave Eric her number (he still has the scrap of paper where she wrote it down).

Alice and Eric started dating a couple weeks later, and over their time at Vassar together they discovered many more things in common. A shared love of Lord of the Rings, traveling, Renaissance art (though not Michelangelo--Eric will never convince Alice to enjoy Michelangelo), the great outdoors, Shakespeare, Monty Python, and many, many more geeky pop culture items. They stayed together over summer breaks and Alice's semester abroad in Italy, exchanging text messages and emails until they could be together at school again.

Eric graduated from Vassar in 2013 and moved to his hometown of Washington, D.C. Thus the lovebirds began a short stint of long-distance romance. Eric made valiant 5 hour drives up to Vassar to see Alice on the weekends whenever he could. When Alice graduated herself in 2014, those long trips were shortened to only 2 hours, as Alice returned home to Philadelphia.

Finally in 2017, the planets aligned for the two to get a place of their own. Eric accepted a job with Amazon in Boston, and the two of them packed up their 3 desks, 7 computers, one couch, and one wardrobe and drove to Massachusetts.

In first one, then another charming little apartment in Somerville, Alice created art for video games, built up her digital painting portfolio, walked dogs, worked in a hair salon, and baked challah. Eric wrote machine learning code, dove headfirst into complex artificial intelligence and linguistics scientific research, and made excellent mac and cheese for their friends.

Despite the charmingness of the cute little Somerville apartments (#1 and #2), no home is complete without a dog. Alice had been slowly converting Eric into a dog person since day one, and, in September 2017, it was time to put her machinations into action.

Eric and Alice had been interested in adopting a retired racing greyhound since learning about them at the Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire. As a gentle, loving, sensitive, and wonderful apartment dog, a rescue greyhound seemed perfect for Eric's first dog. After doing some research, Alice and Eric found Greyhound Pets of America Massachusetts. They reached out, and were matched with "Bono", a bouncy 3 year old brindle who had been born in Texas on a greyhound farm, but never raced.

2 weeks later, Rowdy (né Bono) was at home in his new life as Alice and Eric's brand new family member. He remains the cutest and best family member.

In July of 2019, Eric was offered a new position with Amazon in Los Angeles. After a bit of deliberation, Alice and Eric decided it would be a great step for both of them to move out to California and start a new chapter of their lives together.

They decided to make the move in late January of 2020. They would pack up their trusty Subaru, a solid old friend bought from Alice's parents, and drive cross-country with Rowdy in the back. They'd see all the greats: Indianapolis, St. Louis, Tucson! The Grand Canyon!