Our story began with the new year in January of 2022. We swiped right and matched on Tinder. A couple weeks after talking, I made a move by asking what his favorite types of food are so we can go on a first date. Luckily, he said sushi so we met at Samurai Sushi in Des Moines and it quickly became our favorite place. Our next stop was Cold Stone for some delicious ice cream. It was a toss up between not wanting the lunch to end and filling my never-ending craving for ice cream 🙂

As cliche as it is, after the first time meeting Austin, I knew our relationship was going to be different than previous ones. His brown eyes and eyelashes had me from the start 🙂 After our first date, there were many more drives up to Ankeny to eat. Both of us are people who don’t like to waste time and know when something feels right, so after a few drives back and forth to each other we decided to make it official as boyfriend and girlfriend in March of 2022.

It wasn’t too long after that we talked about moving in with one another. We knew he wasn’t going anywhere with him working on his parents farm, so the decision for me to move in with him was an easy one. We had plans for me to move in after we’ve been together about one year, however, things don’t always go as planned! One of Austin’s friends had mentioned a job opening as a teller at the bank in Rockwell City. At first I was on the fence about applying/moving for a couple of reasons; it was a lot sooner than we had planned, in addition to worrying about what others would think about it since we had only known each other for about 8 months. Through a few talks though I came to the conclusion that as long as Austin and I were confident in the decision, nothing else mattered. So, I applied, accepted the job, and got moved in with Austin the last week in August of 2022.

Fast forward to August of 2023. Nothing was unusual about this day. we were out golfing at Twin Lakes for a regular round of golf.We got to hole 6, when a group of two were coming up behind, so we let them play on through. After we hit our tee shots, we found our balls. As I was getting ready to get out to hit my next shot, Austin turned around and said he wanted to show me something. He went to our tree! The plaque says “Austin and Bailey Thomas.” As I was reading it, he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. I honestly did not think I was going to cry, but as soon as he stood up and we hugged, I bawled. I am very happy there isn’t a video of it 🙂