The summer of 2020 is one that will be remembered forever. Not for the global pandemic that disrupted life as we knew it, but for the fateful event that happened on the volleyball courts at Skyline Social and Games. Once Deviney saw Travis put another one of his signature back row spikes into the net, she knew he was really something.

They played volleyball together over the summer, getting to know each other over small conversations. Deviney had joined the team as her one outing she allowed herself during PA school. Turns out, she picked the right activity. Travis asked Deviney to dinner shortly after the season ended, but she was back in Iowa for a month for clinical rotations. They talked every day until their first date.

They had their first date at The Breeze Inn, during which Deviney had to put her medical knowledge into action to save a patron who fainted at the bar while Travis enjoyed his fries and offered help from afar. They didn’t realize it at the time, but while that man was falling to the floor, they were simultaneously falling in love.

They saw each other over weekends traveling back and forth from Duluth, Des Moines, Grand Rapids, Alexandria, and Staples, as Deviney finished PA school. Deviney got a job in Pediatric Orthopedic Surgery in Duluth and they were finally dating in the same city.

After three years of dating, full of charcuterie parties in which Travis didn’t complain, fishing trips in which Deviney only complained a little, and everything in between, Travis got down on one knee at a scenic overlook of Lake Superior, which was the site of their second date, and the rest is history.