A few years ago we were both working at St. Vincent's Hospital in Billings, MT. We worked on different floors and by chance, Grace got sent to the 4th floor one night when I was charge nurse. She remembers that night much better than I do so ask her about her experience that night if you want a funny story. We actually met a second time briefly when I was up on the 6th floor visiting Saige, a friend I went to school with.

Not long after, Saige started trying to convince Grace and I to go out on a date, which we both adamantly declined multiple times. She was relentless though and eventually swindled us into going on a double date, or so we thought. Her date "couldn't make it" although we are convinced that she never actually had a date and it was just a ploy to get us together. We had our first date on 1/2/22 at Rio Sabina's, a mexican restaurant in Billings that has since closed, and after a few margaritas and some tacos, Grace was sent into a slight panic when Saige suggested going back to Grace's house to watch a movie. I noticed the slight panic on her face at dinner, so when we got back to her place, I made sure to sit in my pickup for a few minutes so she could tidy up or whatever she needed to do inside before I went up to the door. Saige picked out a movie about mountaineering and then about 15 min into it, she decided she was going to leave. So we were left watching a random movie we didn't pick out and we had the same 2 thoughts at that point. First off we were thinking about how Saige did us dirty (showed up with no date, suggested a movie and left very soon after). Our second thought was this movie is soooo boring and eventually one of us said that out loud and we mutually decided to put on something else.

The two of us have been virtually inseparable since that night and spent so much time at her place that I was basically moved in there after a few months. In the fall, we started to feel like it was silly to be paying rent on two places when we were almost always together in one, so we decided to officially live together and moved into my apartment. We stayed in Billings for a while longer until Grace's dad passed away unexpectedly in July 2023. Grace had a lot to take care of at his house in Townsend, MT and I was making the 3 hour drive from Billings to help as much as I could while still working in Billings. Eventually, I brought up the idea of moving into her dad's house and she had been thinking the same so it was an easy decision for us to make the move. I got a job lined up in Townsend and started the moving process. Grace had been staying at the house since August and I finally got moved from Billings right before winter. We had a lot of unpacking, cleaning, and organizing to do of course and we started to settle in to our new place and new life in a small town.

I knew for a long while that I wanted to ask Grace to marry me but she said I had to wait until we were together at least a year before I was allowed to ask. Life decided to keep throwing us curve balls and we went through a lot together that first year and a half. For a few months while she was living at her dad's, I was left unsupervised in Billings and one day I decided to go out and explore the jewelry stores in town for engagement rings. I drove all around town to the various stores in town and had no intention of finding "the one" but as I was browsing I saw one that was absolutely perfect. A few weeks later, I went to pick it up from the store and had to figure out how to hide it until I was ready to ask. I stashed it in the back of the gun safe and as I latched the safe door, Grace walked into the garage and gave me a dang heart attack because she was literally seconds away from seeing me holding the bag from Goldsmith Gallery. We had talked about my proposal a handful of times so I had to make sure to hit all the important parts we talked about like asking her uncle's permission since I wasn't able to ask her dad, making sure her nails were done, and having friends around during/afterwards. At thanksgiving, I was able to steal her uncle aside from the family and ask his permission for Grace's hand in marriage.

The date I had in my head for the proposal was 12/2/23, but I still had to figure out how I was going to get her nails done and friends invited without blowing the surprise. A few days before the date, her sister (Drisana) told her she was thinking about coming for a visit with the kids and Grace asked if that was okay. I immediately texted Drisana back and told her my plan because it was the perfect scenario to have someone to film and have some of her favorite people around when it happened without raising suspicion. I had her aunt take her to get her nails done for "the christmas party" while they were out shopping earlier in the day. Drisana and I had a plan to get Grace ready by telling her we need to take pictures with the boys and then some of just us. When I was our turn for "pictures" I get her to turn away to check if the stockings were straight behind her and when she turned around I was down on one knee. Grace was so surprised she couldn't do anything but say YES! and once I got her to put the dog down, I slid a beautiful ring onto her finger and we started a whole new chapter of our life together.