Scott and I started dating in 2022 but our story starts back in 2015, when we were just freshmen in college at St. Ambrose University in Davenport, Iowa. We met through mutual friends, and our tightknit group quickly became known as “Gang” (a name which Scott claims credit for). We made many memories throughout college, but our personalities at the time made us better friends than partners. As Scott puts it, he “still had a lot of growing up to do at that point”. Scott graduated a year early but still came back to St. Ambrose every weekend to hang out with our friend group during my senior year. After college, Scott attended graduate school to obtain his doctoral degree in physical therapy, and I started my career as an ICU nurse. We no longer had the opportunity to see each other in person on a regular basis, and instead mainly kept in contact via our “Gang” group chat that was started while we attended St. Ambrose. Fast forward to the end of 2021, and the “Gang” group chat was flooded with life updates from everybody, since it had been a while since we had all seen eachother. I felt the pull to reach out to Scott because we’d both had big life moments happen to us and I figured we could each use a listening ear. Our conversations became more and more frequent, and we both realized that we wanted to pursue each other. We then had to figure out how to make a long-distance relationship work, since I lived in Iowa and Scott lived in Illinois. We spent as much time together as possible that first summer forming the foundation we have today. Scott FINALLY (just kidding, sort of) asked me to make it official on July 14th 2022, after I took him to a Cub’s game on his birthday the day before. I guess the cliche “you know when you know” applied to us as we were talking about the future by our second or third month of dating. We have done a lot in our time together, but some of our favorite pastimes include celebrating our friends getting married, trips to visit family, walking Ollie or taking him to the dog park, playing cards, cooking together, and exploring Michigan. We moved in together in March of 2024, and Scott proposed to me only a couple months later. We headed up to St. Joseph, Michigan, to celebrate my cousin’s son’s first birthday the weekend of May 18th. My aunt, my mom, Scott and I went to the downtown area to walk around and check out the beach after the family get together. As the four of us were walking along the beach, my aunt and mom were ahead of Scott and I by no more than 10 feet, when I called Scott out for acting “weird”. He had a look on his face like something was wrong or like something was occupying his mind, and I told him as much. After pausing for a second, he said “Do you wanna know why I wanted to come to Michigan with you this weekend?” I had no idea where he was going with that question and simply asked “Why?”, and as soon as I asked that, he dropped to one knee. I gasped so loud and I swear time stopped before he asked “Will you marry me?”. Of course I said “Yes” and Scott and I shared a long private moment on the beach before heading to share the news. It was the best surprise I could have asked for and I can’t wait to marry my best friend in January 2025 after almost 10 years of knowing and loving each other through many stages of life.