Zach and I met in the spring of our junior year of high school at a party. A party we were throwing at my parents house (shh, don't tell them)! Some of the boys decided to go in the hot tub and long story short, Zach ended up wearing my brother's pants home that night! He reached out to me on Snapchat to ask for his pants back and the rest is history!

Towards the end of the school year, Zach asked me to come over to help him with his math final study guide. I really didn't want to do math but wanted to see him so said yes! Turned out he really didn't want to do math either because we spent most of the night sitting at his parents dining room table talking about everything and anything. From there, we spent the summer together and began dating August 1st, 2016, right before senior year.

For our one year anniversary we took a trip to the Black Hills in South Dakota. We camped at Sheridan Lake which is a lake my family visited while growing up. I told Zach we had to go to Sylvan Lake as it was one of my favorite things about the Black Hills. It only took a few minutes of him being there for it to quickly become one of his favorite places on earth. If you've been to Sylvan Lake, you know there are massive boulders that stick out of the water. We climbed up onto one of these rocks, sat down, and enjoyed the view for quite awhile. This began a tradition of doing just that when we would take our anniversary trips down there.

Zach and I took a trip to the Black Hills last year in September for a late 6 year anniversary trip and loved all the fall colors and weather. We decided to come back the following year for our 7 year anniversary and bring our parents since we knew they would love it too! Zach's parents, unfortunately, were not able to join us but we still decided to go. Some of my aunts and uncles joined us, along with my sister, Katie, and her boyfriend, Thomas. Our first night there we decided we were going to go to Sylvan Lake in the morning for a day of hiking and exploring. I don't think Zach slept a single second that night knowing what was to come the next day. We woke up to a beautiful sunrise and got ready for the day. We got to Sylvan Lake and did the mile hike around the lake and then came back to the boulders that we'd always sit on. I climbed up first and Katie quickly followed. Thomas told her to hang back for a second, as Zach was walking up behind me. She assumed we were going to pose for a quick picture so waited. I sat on the rock and waited for Zach to sit next to me, like he always had. Then I heard him say "Hey Allison". I turned and saw him holding a box as he was getting down on a knee. The next 60 seconds are a blur because I'm pretty sure I blacked out! Needless to say, I said YES! When I asked him more about his plan of where to propose he said, "The rock, it was always the rock"... and so the planning began!

We are so so blessed and lucky to have all of you to celebrate this big day with and can't wait to see you all then!!

Things to Do

Dakota Zoo

Super Slide Amusement Park

Kirkwood Mall

Tilt Studio Kirkwood