A tale as old as time. First, the swipes. Then, the messages. I message first and tell him he has a beautiful smile. We discover in one another: a Sufjan Stevens mega-fan, passionate Spanish-speaker, and creative little soul.

Later, the first date. I had just moved to Colorado. I attend wearing cute but not fully broken-in ballet flats. Unintroduced to Colorado outdoors culture, I don't realize I'm in for what essentially felt to little SoCal me like a 12 mile hike around Sloan's Lake. To be fair, it was only 2.5 miles, a fact we know because we live a or so block away in our shared home.

My feet may have been bleeding by the end of that first date walk, but I barely noticed with the way the conversation flowed. I talked to my friend that night- I knew Daniel left a hell of an impression as a wonderful storyteller and soul, but I didn't know just how I felt. He didn't fit in any box I had ever constructed for understanding another person. I racked my brain to try to figure out what these big confusing feelings could be.

The next date, he picked me up in a baby blue mini-van after one of my first grad school classes. He smiled that beautiful smile. We giggled until our cheeks hurt. We talked about outer space and the nature of universal human connection.

"Oh boy", I remember thinking. "I'm in love."

The first-

The night of the first proposal, we left for a long, meandering walk through the streets of Porto, Portugal. We accidentally walked almost 5 additional miles that night after a long day of exploring the city.

Cold and wet from a torrential downpour earlier, we happened upon this warm, enchanting restaurant overlooking the Douro river. We sat for hours at a candlelight dinner chatting about shared dreams for our future family and laughing.

We decided to climb to see the view from the top of bridge overlooking the river. We climbed what felt like a mountain after a bottle of wine and made it to the top.

After a lot of happy yelps, jumps and some tears, we got engaged.

Fast forward a year... we made it back to Porto, Portugal to visit my parents and see how they were settling into their new home.

Sadly, we had failed last year to capture any good photos due to the fact our proposal happened in the middle of the night, so we thought we’d take the opportunity to capture our love in the very place where we decided to take the next step in building our future together. Gosh, Alexa and I sure had the best time.

Little did I know that Alexa would execute the ultimate reverse uno card and surprise me with a proposal of her own a year after we got engaged. I don’t often get surprised by much, but she really got me this time and I’m so excited that I also had the opportunity to say yes to our love.