Wayne got a job interview with Visit Casper. They flew him to Casper from Michigan, so he decided to buy them a gift card as a sign of thanks. His gut instinct told him to get the gift card from Metro Coffee Company, where Andee was working. Wayne saw Andee, told his friends and family that he just met the girl he was going to marry, took the job, and moved to Casper 3 weeks later.

Wayne asked Andee out - Date 1 was a quick smoothie date on Wayne's lunch hour. Date 2 was a super-secret, super-romantic rooftop dinner date on top of Visit Casper's Building. They worked less than a block away from each other, and hung out every day since.

First road trip! We went to Estes Park together... Andee asked Wayne if she should get road trip snacks. Wayne said that he "had it covered." A bundle of bananas... "had it covered" meant that he brought a bundle of bananas. Andee has been in charge of road trip snacks ever since.

First trip to Michigan together! Andee met Wayne's family and friends for the first time.

First Christmas together! Little did we know the significance that Christmas trees would have in our relationship (yes this is foreshadowing...)

Andee moved to St. George, Utah in late 2020, and after much convincing, Wayne moved out in February of 2021. This season of massive change and uncertainty ended up being one of the best things we could have done for our relationship. Ask either of us, and we will tell you that our brief time in St. George catapulted us into working through our hardships and truly becoming each other's best friend.

You know what else will force you to work through hardships in a relationship?? Training for a marathon together... oof!

Ah St. George... we came, we saw, we healed, and we got the heck out of there. Moved back to Casper in 2022!

The tree that changed it all! On November 12th of 2022, we had plans to cut down our first real Christmas tree together, but Wayne got sick with Covid. He was so distraught to push our plans for another week out! Of course, Andee kept thinking "it's not that big of a deal... we can easily wait one more week to decorate for Christmas." Little did Andee know that Wayne planned to propose in front of our first Christmas tree. On November 19th, we woke up, went to breakfast, and drove up the mountain to take pictures with our first tree together. Living in a tiny studio apartment at the time, we both saw this perfect, teensy tree and knew it was the one.

Wayne proposed! We drove down the mountain with our first Christmas tree and a ring on Andee's finger!

We found the perfect house to start the rest of our lives together in.

You better believe that it is a new tradition for us to cut down a Christmas tree together on the anniversary of our engagement. And of course, Wayne will always pretend propose when we do! A bigger living space meant we got to upgrade to a slightly bigger tree this year, and it was perfect.