In fall 2009 Grace and Matt were seniors at rival high schools. One night Grace attended a musical at Matt’s high school with one of her friends to watch some grade school buddies. After the musical her friend introduced her to a guy who had been in the musical. This guy happened to be the one and only Matt. It was a brief meeting but it stuck out to Grace because he was the guy who got to curse in the musical.

Fast forward 11 years…

One evening Grace and Matt meet again the old fashion way, online! Grace liked that he was sweet and outdoorsy like her and Matt liked her dog Sky. They agreed to get drinks on a Wednesday evening in August 2021 at the Blue Moose. They had much to talk about, especially since they discovered they knew all the same people and had the same friends. It went so well they both decided to go on a second date the following weekend hiking in Clinton State Park.

Now here’s where things got a little bumpy… the night before the hike there was some rain and the next day there were some spiders lurking in the trees. Grace and Matt walked through no less than 20 spiderwebs. And at some point they both stepped into a nest of ticks and their feet paid for it. They pushed through though and at the end they decided to sit by the lake and drink some Busch Light. Until Grace’s dog Sky knocked their beer into the lake along with Matt’s phone. Despite all the chaos they had their first conversation about what each other was looking for and ended the night with Mi Ranchito and a smooch.

Grace was panicking that the date was so chaotic that Matt may not be interested anymore and was thinking about self sabotaging (because she does not always think rationally). Later that week though Sky got attacked at doggie daycare and Matt proved her wrong. While Sky was recovering Matt showed up to Grace’s place with Mexican food, margaritas, and a dog bone for Sky. Grace and Matt knew that night this was the real thing and dove right in. And the rest was history :)