Sam and I met in 2011, during our 10th grade Geometry class. We went on our first date after weeks of flirting via Facebook Messenger, and saw "Battle: Los Angeles" with Sam's cousin, Nathan. A few weeks later, we were officially "boyfriend/girlfriend," going to football games, Whataburger, proms, and graduation all together (in fact, we even sat right next to each other while taking the SAT!). Freshman year, I went to the University of North Texas while Sam studied Marine Engineering at Texas A&M University at Galveston. Despite the distance, we continuously made the nearly 300-mile trip between Denton and Galveston for the first two years of college. The commute got slightly shorter when I transferred to TAMU in College Station, but we both continued to work through the long-distance. I drove around the state for Sam's rowing events, while he drove up to College Station for nearly every home football game. After four years of college and long-distance dating, we celebrated our graduations on the same weekend. That summer, we took a trip up to Ohio to visit my family, where he was fortunate enough to hear that he had been selected to commission as an officer in the United States Coast Guard. With his future plans secured, Sam proposed! Sam and I will be married on April 7, 2018 - which marks nearly our seventh year together.