My favorite story to tell.

In spring of 2019, I (Allison) decided to take a LEAP out of my comfort zone and commit to a study abroad capstone class at UNI. I debated on which class to take (aka, which countries to travel to), and ultimately decided on the class that traveled to Ireland, Wales, and England. This class entailed occasional Friday evening classes in the spring, submitting papers online, a couple presentations, and lastly (most importantly), about 16 days traveling Ireland, Wales, and England. Two individuals in this class (us, I'm talking about us), each happened to miss the Friday evening classes that the other one attended; therefore, never knowing the other person even existed. July 9th, 2019 rolls around, and we all boarded different flights to Ireland. I, and my travel partner, had a layover in Iceland and were the last ones to arrive early afternoon on July 10th. We walked into our first hostel, Jacob's Inn, where the entire class stood in the lobby waiting for us to drop our stuff in our room so we could go explore, and I remember asking my roommate, "uhh did you know who the dude in the red jacket was?"

To shorten this story a little, the dude in the red rain jacket (that folded into a fanny pack btw), was a city boy from Ankeny, IA, by the name of Darrian Ward. Whom I first broke the ice with on the bus by saying, "I like your tattoo". :'). Fast forward throughout the trip, we, along with 7 other new friends formed a little pack, we called "Slainte". We did everything together; (to name a few) we walked the streets of Dublin, kissed the blarney stone, went to too many pubs to count, drank too many ciders and *whatever the guys drank* to count, toured Oxford University, toured castles (including Windsor), became claustrophobic in a Welsh coal mine, sang amazing karaoke, became London locals on the Underground, and shared countless laughs and stories. All while everyone started to notice two individuals (us again) maybe kind of sort of falling for each other. Seen above is the very first picture we took together, randomly, on the swing set outside Blarney Castle. By the end of the trip, we were sharing a bottle of wine, watching Wicked at a London theatre and walking the streets (with friends) singing "What's Up?" by the 4 Non Blondes (sang by an amazing street performer). Eventually the trip of a lifetime had to end, but it also happened to start a whole new adventure.

We went on our first official date a few days before the start of our Senior years of college, to Whiskey Road in Cedar Falls. Officially "made it official" September 12, 2019. That year we met each others families, went to ISU football games, attended holidays and many other events together. Spring of 2020, Covid hit, and we both "graduated" with our Bachelor's degrees (Darrian in Biology with a mental health minor, and me in Communication Sciences and Disorders). Fall of 2020, I started grad school at UNI for Speech Pathology, and Darrian took a gap year to take a few more science classes and work before applying and getting accepted into dental school at U of Iowa. Summer of 2021 was busy with friend's weddings, concerts, a mini vaca to Colorado, and moving Darrian to Iowa City (boo Hawkeyes). That year was full of hard work with year one of dental school, last semester of SLP grad school, internships, all while continuing long distance. Therefore, we took a must needed spring break trip to Arizona Spring of 2022. We went to spring training baseball games, zoo, Top Golf..... and the Grand Canyon, where we got ENGAGED!! Lots happened after that- I actually got to graduate this time with my Master's, Darrian got his white coat, etc.

Fast forward to now, Darrian is in his 3rd year of dental school, I am a year and a half into my big girl job of being a skilled nursing speech therapist in SE/Eastern IA. We live in a town home and have an almost 7 year old pupper Ruger. We have our first nephew! We still travel a lot of weekends to Emmetsburg or Ankeny to spend time with family, go to ISU games, etc. We are so excited to celebrate in July with everyone; I'm sure most people say this, but our story is my favorite, and I can't wait to celebrate it!