My good friend Hannah recently started a new job, and on her first day, Evan was the one who trained her. Later that night, when we were hanging out, she casually mentioned that she thought Evan and I would make a great couple. Naturally, I couldn't resist checking out his social media. After a little stalking, I followed him—and it didn’t take long before he followed me back and sent over his phone number.

Our first date was at Tye's Snocone Stand. I went with a daring choice, ordering the "dinosaur" flavor to seem adventurous, while Evan stuck with cherry. It turned out that the flavor wasn’t the most exciting part of the day; we ended up talking nonstop for hours, so much so that we didn't even realize how late it had gotten until it was already 2 AM. From that moment on, we couldn’t get enough of each other. We kept finding any excuse to hang out and stayed on the phone for hours, always looking for ways to spend more time together. Eventually, we made things official, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Our story starts off at a place where all love stories start, the Osage Center in Cape Girardeau Missouri. As you can tell, I like to joke a little, and I think that’s how I won Emma over, as the Osage Center was the last place that I thought I would have found true love. It all started when I was told to train a newly hired employee, but that new employee was not Emma. It was her best friend and bridesmaid, Hannah Dudley. The shift went smoothly, and I was ready to head home. Little did I know though, when I arrived home, my life would change forever. When I got home from work, I checked my phone and I saw that I had a follow request from a girl named Emma Newell. Intrigued, I clicked on the notification and saw her profile and instantly, I realized that this was the most beautiful girl I have ever seen. I also saw some pictures on her profile with Hannah, so knew that Hannah had to go home and talk about me to Emma (thanks Hannah). After contemplating my next move over the following days, I finally decided to DM (Direct Messaging for those who don’t know what that means) Emma on Instagram. If anyone knows me, this is very uncharacteristic of me, but I knew I had to do something and couldn’t let this girl slip from my fingers. I gave her my number and low and behold, I received a text from her shortly after. Our initial conversation was amazing, and we covered everything from traditional icebreakers all the way to if we liked Sweet Baby Ray’s barbeque sauce. Are you ready for the first plot twist? Emma would actually ghost me after this conversation, but I knew that was not going to be the last I was going to talk to her. After some time had passed (and some convincing from another friend of mine Ashley) Emma finally reached back out to me and that is when we set up our first date to Ty’s Snow cones. I went to pick her up and saw her in person for the first time and knew I was making the right decision by picking her. We went to get snow cones and Emma got the dinosaur as she claims she was trying to impress me, which she did. After eating snow cones, we would sit in the parking lot of Ty’s, just talking for hours. We would then head back to my house and again, sit there talking for hours. I would eventually take her home, knowing that there is something special here. Little did I know this would go onto be the best two years of my life. We have been through so much together, road trips, surprise dogs, moves, long distance, and so much more. I wouldn’t want to be doing all of that with anyone else and am so glad that Emma gave me a second chance. I love you forever and always Emma Newell and can’t wait to change your name to Emma Gray.