The story about Savana and I meeting is one that I'm not necessarily proud of, but it's worth retelling, nonetheless. I am a teacher at the Rib Lake Middle school in Rib Lake, Wisconsin. On one evening in September, Savana, an alumni of Rib Lake High School, showed up to the school to help out the varsity volleyball team at their practice.

I was walking out of the school to call it a day when I saw Savana get out of her car. I couldn't see her clearly, but I saw her clear enough that my stomach had butterflies in it. I couldn't help but wonder who she was, why she was here, and why I can't take my eyes off her. I noticed she had athletic clothes on and was carrying a pair of shoes so I figured she was headed to the gym.

I immediately went back into my classroom and opened up my computer. I accessed our school's Hudl camera, a livestreaming camera that's used for recording volleyball and basketball games, which is mounted on the wall of our gymnasium. I tried to get a closer look at who she was but I was unable to do so.

A couple days later, I asked some of the volleyball players, who also happen to be my basketball players, who the girl was that came in to help. When they told me her name was Savana Radtke I was shocked. I remembered Savana from high school. She was a year behind me, and I remember seeing her at various sporting events when Phillips would compete against Rib Lake. I knew she was a popular kid back then, but I had absolutely no idea that she turned out to be the beautiful woman that she is today.

Instantly, I had to start stalking her socials. We followed each other on Instagram and were friends on Facebook. I did a deep dive through all her pictures and was amazed by two things: 1. How can a girl this beautiful exist in northern and Wisconsin and I don't know about it, and 2. How has no man swept her off her feet yet?

I reached out to one of my best friends, Levi Ewan (Shout out Levi), to inquire more about her. I asked him several questions ranging from "What's she like?" to "Do you think she'd respond if I texted her?" In true Levi fashion, he would always give me a response like "She's chill" or "She's alright." I knew that at some point if I ever wanted to talk to her, I would have to man-up and just send her a text message.

Unfortunately, I didn't have her number, and I was nowhere near confident enough to rip an Instagram DM, so within a week after finding out her name, I made the move to add her on Snapchat. Almost instantly she added me back. Game on. The only problem was I had nothing good to say to her. Pickup lines stop being cool after you graduate college, and no girl responds to a basic message like "hey what's up" anymore. So instead I just didn't say anything and hoped she would message me first. She never did.

I actually sort of gave up on the whole thing for a few weeks. It wasn't until she was at a Brewer game in the middle of September that I figured I would send her a message. She posted a snapchat on her story of her and a few friends, and she looked a little intoxicated so I figured if the whole thing crashed and burned, at least she was drunk and maybe wouldn't remember.

As you may have learned by now, I am not overly confident in my abilities to text women that I don't know. To illustrate how bad I am at it, the very first message I sent her was a lie. The message I sent her read "Hey. I think I see you. I'm sitting across from you on the first base side." Savana was seated on the third base side, and it would have been perfect. Only problem was I wasn't sitting on the first base side. As a matter of fact, I wasn't at the Brewer game at all. I was sitting on my couch at home watching the Brewers on TV.

After sending the message, I was nervous I wouldn't get a reply. But lucky for me she did reply. She said, "Cool. Come over here and drink with us." At this point, I was ready to chuck my phone into traffic. How could I be so stupid?! Obviously, I can't go by her as I am not even at the game! I guess my mom was right when she always used to tell me I never think before I speak.

Anyways, I had to continue lying and tell her that I was with some friends and that we had to get back for an early morning trip back to Phillips, so I better not start drinking. Over the course of the night, we continued to chat. We talked about the Brewers, Rib Lake, Basketball, golf, etc. Before I knew it, it was three in the morning. Before, I went to bed that night, I told her, "I know you're pretty intoxicated at the moment, but I really hope you remember this conversation and decide to text me tomorrow, too!" And as you probably can guess, she messaged me the next day. From there, we set up a date, which led to another date, and another after that. About six months after that, I popped the question.

Before I wrap this up, there were some people in my life that said six months is too soon for a proposal. To those people, I say, I knew I wanted to marry her from the start.