January 1993 - Jacob Douglas Homberg is born. He spends some time as a baby, then as a toddler.

July 1995 - Erin Laura Shaughnessy is born. She does not know Jake yet and will not meet him for roughly 2 decades.

2001: Erin moves to New Milford with her parents to a house on Wellsville Avenue. She does not know that Jake has been living on the same street, 8 houses down, this entire time.

Somewhere in the middle: Jake and Erin go to separate schools and their paths never cross. Kind of bizarre to be in the same age bracket in the same (relatively small) town and have no clue the other exists. After high school, Jake heads off to the Marine Corps, and Erin tries her hand at becoming a dog groomer at the local Petco.

Sometime in 2015, Jake returns from the USMC. Upon his return, he purchases a puppy. Jake and his father Doug go shopping at the local Petco for new puppy stuff. During their visit, Jake spots a strange young blonde woman at the grooming salon counter reading a book. The die has been cast. He sees what he likes. He comes up with a plan.

Jake returns to Petco with said puppy (the cutest puppy ever - sorry Cooper/JR) and asks the strange young blonde to trim his puppy's tiny sharp dagger nails. The young blonde woman is Erin. She finds this gentleman with the adorable puppy quite handsome and charming. She does not know his name other than Jake, and refers to him as hot guy. She returns home from work to tell her mother she has met the man she is going to marry. Her mother brushes it off because her daughter is sometimes delusional when it comes to love.

Following the initial encounter, Jake returns to Petco several times to purchase things for the puppy. On one of these trips, he attempts to purchase some bitter apple spray to prank his sister Christie with. Erin finally asks are you going to ask me for my number?, and he does. Jake is so flustered, he waltzes towards the door in a daze without paying for the bitter apple spray. Erin has to call to him to remind him to pay, which he does. Jake is not embarrassed. He could never be. The two then plan to meet for coffee.

Jake does not drink coffee. Nonetheless, they have a pleasant date. Erin is terrified of commitment at this point, so she decides she will not date this fellow, but wants to remain friends with him. She will regularly hang out with him to get ice cream and at local playgrounds at night with him. Jake visits Erin at Petco often, bearing gifts in the form of iced coffees and teas from Dunkin Donuts. Erin clearly does not understand the definition of dating. They find out they have lived 8 houses apart from each other nearly their entire lives. As time goes on, the pattern continues. Jake takes Erin out to dinner and go-karting. This is their 2nd first date, the REAL date, and she kisses him. A man across the street sees Erin kiss Jake in the parking lot, and proceeds to give Jake a thumbs up.

Erin and Jake begin officially dating on Martin Luther King day of 2017. Jake brings home a fluffy golden retriever pup in the summer, and Cooper is a welcome addition. They hit a few bumps in the road along the way (after all, they still have some growing up to do), but find their way back to each other in the end.

Erin moves into Jake’s home in late summer of 2021, and they drive to Wisconsin to pick up the tiniest, stinkiest little corgi mix anyone has ever seen. Driving your girl 16 hours to Wisconsin to get her dream dog on nearly no sleep is the ultimate display of love, and from then on Erin has no choice but to admit that Jake is her best friend and soul mate, and that there is no one else in the world she’d rather spend her life with.

Fast forward to 2023. Jake proposes to Erin in an apple orchard. She says yes, of course. They are very excited to officially start their lives together. You know the rest.