Nathan and I met at a party at his fraternity's liveout my freshman and his sophomore year (which I don't remember). It's funny because I swore I met him at a bible study (which he doesn't remember). So we still don't know which came first!

Anyway, wherever we met, we became good friends. Anytime we saw each other out, we'd have the best time. It was always so easy. We became increasingly close the last semester of Nathan's senior year of college. During this semester, I started catching feelings for Nathan (yes, I made the first move). It was also during this time that my flight from New Orleans was cancelled and I was not going to make my connecting flight to Pullman. I checked all my friend's locations and I saw Nathan was at an airport in California. I texted him and asked if he was flying into Spokane and if I could ride back to Pullman with him. He said we landed around the same time and that he could drive me.

Turns out, he lied to me and actually landed hours before me. I was later filled in that he hung out around Spokane to wait for me. He picked me up from the airport with a Mountain Dew from Costco! If you thought he was flirting, you'd be wrong. On that same drive, as I was flirting, Nathan told me he had accepted he would not meet his wife in college and he'd need to look elsewhere. He swears he said that strategically, but regardless, it worked. It was game on.

We started hanging out more and it was always so easy. By the time Nathan graduated, we weren't ready to say goodbye to each other. Three days after he graduated college, Nathan was driving over to the west side to interview for Bothell Fire and he stopped by Royal City on the way so I could show him the farm and my grandpa's vintage car collection.

Before we went to my grandpa's shop, I told him that I was going to introduce him to my grandparents as my boyfriend just so it'd be easier. Turns out he was already planning on asking me! So our real story began on May 9th where we celebrated with a Mountain Dew from Harvest Foods (the only store in Royal if you're unfamiliar).

Less than a week after we started dating, I was backpacking Europe for a month, so we got good at dealing with the distance. Thank goodness we did since we had to keep doing it for a year while I was finishing undergrad and he was going through fire academy. We finally got to be together full time after I graduated and we met somewhere in the middle in Ellensburg!

& here we are now!