Andrew and I matched on a dating app in early February 2022. He seemed to be an attractive, witty, and interesting man who happened to be from Pittsburgh – where I spent many happy summer vacations and holidays with my grandparents when I was growing up. He messaged me and informed me that he too spent some time on Capitol Hill, “stood behind podiums”, and worked in the non-profit do-gooder space. This was a nod to one of my profile pictures – a shot of me giving a speech behind a podium with U.S. Senate insignia (which my girlfriends had discouraged me from using because “Hinge is NOT LinkedIn, Danielle”). In a shameless attempt to pique my interest and score a first date, Andrew sent me a link to a Washington Post feature that was all about….him. It worked.


After a last-minute change in plans, we were both free on the evening of February 13th – Super Bowl Sunday. What’s more appropriate for a wildly romantic first date than Buffalo Wild Wings, beer, and football? We managed to talk through the entire Super Bowl (although those of you who know Andrew might not find this shocking). After the game, he walked me to my car, opened my door, and asked if he could see me again the next day. I said yes - it worked again. Driving home I realized I had no idea which team actually won the Super Bowl and that I had paid zero attention to the halftime show I was so excited to see (it was Mary J. Blige, Snoop, Eminem and Dr. Dre...come on).


My friends noticed I was spending a lot of time with “the curtain guy” (after he put up curtains in three rooms in my house he was affectionally referred to as such). We planned trips to Charlottesville, Pittsburgh, Harpers Ferry, the Shenandoah Valley and Aruba within the first two months we were dating. We had fun together. Everything felt easy and we just seemed to click. There would be many, many more trips – Nashville, Greenville, Las Vegas, Denver, Costa Mesa, San Jose, New Orleans, Boston, Argentina and our latest adventure, Antarctica…I had found someone who could not only keep up with me, but who could help me see and experience even more. We were and still are learning from each other.


From the very beginning Andrew understood and respected the importance of my time with my two boys. About six months into our relationship, I was ready to make an important introduction. Over a hibachi dinner, Andrew, Cristian and Aiden got acquainted. While they casually chatted about travel, camping, and general survival skills, I knew I had made the right decision. He’s since helped Aiden take up archery, planned a few trips to the mountains for all of us, and gotten in the car to help Cristian practice driving. I couldn’t be happier to have Andrew in their lives, or to be able to share the two coolest kids in the world with him. By the time fall arrived, I told a few confidants that I thought I had found my person.


In early December I was stretched a little thin - planning our annual association conference and prepping for a presentation in Saudi Arabia. Per usual, Andrew was doing everything he could to help me. One night, he asked me if I would bring him coffee in bed the next morning (I had an early alarm and we are not morning people). I agreed, and probably should have been suspicious, but was too tired to analyze. On December 5th, I staggered downstairs, took a coffee cup out of the cabinet, and noticed there was an engagement ring sitting next to my beloved Nespresso machine. A tiny piece of paper with my fortune printed on it, from the previous night’s Chinese take-out, was resting next to the ring box. It read, “There are good days ahead”. I stared and tried to process. I took the ring upstairs (after what Andrew will tell you was an eternity) and he just smiled after I blabbered something about getting distracted when I went to make coffee. He asked me if I would have coffee with him all the mornings. I said yes. In my pajamas. It worked again.


On February 13th, exactly one year from our first date, Andrew and I were married at the Stafford County Courthouse.


I have never met anyone quite like Andrew before. He opens all the doors and pulls out all the chairs for me – literally and figuratively. No one has ever treated me with so much respect, thoughtfulness, and kindness. He makes sure I’m safe while somehow balancing that against the fact that I’m an extremely independent (and perhaps sometimes stubborn) woman. I have never felt more supported. Andrew is brilliant and capable of accomplishing anything he sets his mind to. I am proud of his many impressive accomplishments, but even prouder of the man and leader he is. The trust we have in each other is something truly special that has taken time and effort to build – and is something I appreciate the most about our relationship. We are greater than the sum of our parts.


On May 28th, we get to celebrate all of this with our family and friends. We can’t wait to share our happiness with you – and to have you along the way for this exciting, new adventure. It really has been the best year.

If I am being honest, at the beginning of last year I wasn’t in the best of places mentally. I was fresh off a recent break-up, was worn out after my first six months of standing up and running the company, and was mostly just looking forward to getting lost in the woods in April. After going on a few dates (mainly due to boredom) in the Fredericksburg area, I was certainly NOT expecting to meet anyone of substance.


Then I met Danielle.


Classy first date for sure – Buffalo Wild Wings. In my defense, it was hastily planned about four hours prior to the Super Bowl on 13 February. We had an originally planned casual first date on Valentine’s Day; that ended up becoming date number two the next night. Date four was a three-day weekend get-away in Charlottesville 6 days after we met. Within a few weeks we planned an international trip to Aruba. Six months in, I met both of Danielle’s sons. For a guy that had yet to settle on the backside of 37 years old, none of this seemed to be coming at me too fast; well except for the fact that I had a drawer at a woman’s house for the first time in my life (that oddly freaked me out).


My thinking on our relationship radically changed this past fall when I realized that Danielle had made me feel something that I can’t recall feeling in my entire life: at home.


Recently iPhone / Apple has been suggesting navigation back to her place as “Home”, but I think I probably knew that as early as last summer… it just took me a little longer to admit it to myself.


This past year with Danielle has been the happiest of my life. She is extremely smart, thoughtful, measured, and kind. She is very focused on her family, and is a great mother. She challenges me (which we can probably all admit I need in spades)… but she does so in a manner that makes me want to be a better man, mainly because I can’t see a world where she doesn’t deserve a continually better version of me standing next to her.


I have every confidence that standing next to her for the rest of my life is going to help sharpen me into the best version of myself and I am hopeful to do the same for her as we move forward through life together.


I love you Danielle, and I am excited to celebrate together with everyone in May.

https://www.nhl.com/app/penguins/news/penguins-fans-meet-actual-penguins-in-trip-to-antarctica/c-341123826

February 16, 2023

by Luke Henne / Pittsburgh Penguins

Andrew Brennan and Danielle Damm are loyal Pittsburgh Penguins fans. They're also avid travelers, so much so that they found themselves hanging out with actual penguins in Antarctica last month.

"That was the sixth continent we visited," Brennan said. "I'm missing Africa, which she's been to a number of times, and she's missing Australia. Antarctica is not a place that a lot of people have the opportunity to go to."

Damm said that she was fascinated by the fact that penguins there have no natural predators on land.

"They're just really not afraid or bothered by our presence," Damm said. "They come close, to a point where you wanted to keep a safe distance, but sometimes we were having to move out of the way so that the penguins could go where they wanted to go and do the things that they wanted to do."

Brennan loved what were called penguin highways, even adding that the penguins "have the right of way" on the continent.

"I was shocked to see how high up on the terrain some of these penguin colonies are," Brennan said. "From water level, they're climbing probably [500] to 600 feet. And they just hop along, and they get all the way up on the terrain. It was really cool getting to see them and how they interact. We actually got to see a couple penguins that were still sitting on eggs, late hatchers, so that was really cool."

"It's their summer time," Damm added. "We got to see lots of babies, and we got to see some eggs and nesting penguins, several different types of penguins. It was a really cool experience. We got to see them swimming in the water, coming up on land and just going about their business and their massive penguin colonies."

Damm said that what stood out from the trip was the "unique and beautiful" landscape.

"There's nothing else like it," Damm said. "I think we've both traveled quite a bit, seen a lot of different parts of the world, but it's just really special. And you feel very small. You don't run into other people there. There's no infrastructure. It's just nature and all of its glory. That part was beautiful. That was a very special experience."

One of the most-interesting parts of Brennan's experience were the expedition guides - known as naturalists in the nautical world - and their pride for the environment that they get to protect.

"They take so much care in ensuring that the tourists that do go to Antarctica maintain the wilderness in exactly the form that it is in currently, to the point that they do not allow you to take a knee or sit down or put your bags on the ground," Brennan said. "They do not want to contaminate that landscape in any way, shape or form.

"It was really nice to see that. I'm a huge outdoors guy myself, so no-trace principles is a big deal. And I was really enthused to see that their entire industry down there, the folks who get to do this, they take conserving the wilderness down there very seriously."

Just weeks removed from that once-in-a-lifetime trip, the pair had more exciting news coming their way. Brennan and Damm officially got married in a courthouse ceremony on Monday, exactly one year removed from their first date.

"We had our first date on Super Bowl Sunday last year," Brennan laughed. "Very classy, we went to Buffalo Wild Wings to watch the Super Bowl."

Brennan, a Pittsburgh native who completed his undergraduate work at Army West Point and graduate school at the University of Pittsburgh following his return from service, is currently in his first season as a Penguins season-ticket holder … although it's not his first taste of the experience.

"My father and I basically split a season-ticket package in 2016 and 2017, so I got to see some really great hockey," Brennan said. "And I was home for grad school for that period of time. I had been in the military. I basically left Pittsburgh in '04 and was out of town for more than a decade."

However, Brennan did get to witness the Penguins' success a few years later, when they played in the 2009 Stanley Cup Final.

"One of my best friends was from Saginaw Valley in Detroit," Brennan said. "And he was running his mouth about the Red Wings, back when they were in the Western Conference … We said, 'Hey, okay, we're graduating college this year. Let's pat ourselves on the back if they both make it. We'll get tickets to a Cup game and go. So we did that."

Brennan said he grew up around hockey, getting to witness the Penguins teams of the early 1990s win back-to-back Stanley Cups at a young age. He added that Damm, who grew up in a military family and moved around all over the country, isn't without Pittsburgh roots.

Her grandfather taught at Pitt, while her grandmother volunteered at the Pittsburgh Zoo, and Damm has since adopted a fandom for the Penguins.

Now, even though they're in Virginia, Brennan said he has enough work flexibility that he could commit to a season-ticket plan. He said he's given some tickets away to his dad and to some friends in town, but he's been to roughly a dozen games so far this year.

He said that his commitment has been aided by the organization "putting a phenomenal team on the ice every year."

He also believes that Damm, who's 4-1 in games they attend together, is a good-luck charm. In the first game that they went to together, which came last March, the Penguins dominated the Red Wings in an 11-2 victory.

"It set the bar pretty high," Damm laughed.