You ever have an amazing person in your life that repeatedly turns up like a bad penny(in a good way)?

Dez's mom got a job at the barbershop next door to the salon where Aaron's mom Susie worked when they were both six, which had a connected basement. If they were both there on a Saturday, they usually spent it playing Spy Kids or "the floor is lava" in that basement.

When Dez turned twelve, she started volunteering during the summers at the Old Age Home in the salon where Susie {also} worked; meanwhile Aaron got volun-told...that first year. If they weren't locking each other in towel closets, they were probably having wheelchair races; it was a crapshoot whether they were the ones in those wheelchairs, or they were zooming around old folks like it was the Indy 500.

Middle school came, and Aaron distinctly remembers Dez coming up and helping him around the school; his friends definitely gave him crap for talking to a girl, but he couldn't care less.

Thus began the years of Aaron following Dez home, as they walked the same route home, through both middle and high school.

Dez went to Beauty School. Aaron started college at WCTC a year later, (What a cougar!) and one day in November, they ran into each other at the barbershop again while both visiting- though Aaron admits he went hoping he'd run into her.

The stars had finally aligned; they made plans to go bowling with friends that day, but ended up meeting up multiple times before that.

Candy Cane Lane...where she dumped his entire car ashtray of change into the Donations Cup, and got soda all over his cupholders.

Sledding, a movie with those same friends. Constantly texting and chatting, and meeting up to hang out.

Christmas came and went, and on New Years 2012 at 1:19 am when Aaron took Dez home, she turned to him and said "Are you EVER gonna ask me out?!"

The next day they did the Polar Plunge, and the rest, as they say, is history.

August 12, 2013 the two went camping together for the first time; it rained the first night and the borrowed tent leaked like a faucet, and Aaron kicked the blankets into a puddle the next morning before they hiked the trail to Balance Rock at Devils Lake State Park, where he proposed- and she said Yes.

January 1st, 2017 they moved in together.

January 20th, 2021 Aaron bought their home.

And on September 13th, 2024, they make "Always" official.

Even if it's a foregone conclusion.