Our story began with me (Ryan) breaking “Bro Code” and asking Hannah’s oldest brother, Jake, one of my best friends, what he would say if I happened to start talking to her. His response was “Good Luck.” After few days later, Jake and I went for a round of golf with another friend, Ty. After the round, we went to Joe’s for some pizza where Jake asked me if I had texted his sister yet. I said I hadn’t, and then Jake texted Hannah to come into town and eat at Joe’s with us. What started out as an awkward first encounter, turned into texting and talking to each other every single day since then.


With Hannah going to school a couple days after we first met in August, our first actual date did not happen until October 8, when Hannah’s other brother was getting married. It turned out to be a fun night.


Our next date was a couple of weeks later when Hannah asked me to come to her fall date party. I was a little nervous as that is something younger me probably would have said no to. I got the courage to say yes and went and we had a fun time together and with her friends.


With her being at Bradley and me being 3.5 hours away at Central College, in Pella, Iowa, we did not get to see each other for a couple of weeks after that. Hannah decided to make the long drive to Pella for the weekend that first weekend of November. We went out to eat, hung out in the dorm with friends, and even went on a hike. The weekend ended when she had to drive back to school on Sunday. Before she left, I asked her if I could tell my friends that she was my girlfriend. After talking to each other since August, we were finally officially a couple on November 6, 2016.


Being 3.5 hours apart made things difficult at times, especially in the spring when I was busy with baseball and it was almost impossible to see each other more than one weekend a month. But after two years, I graduated and moved to Davenport.


Going from 3.5. hours to an hour and forty-five minutes away was much better, but still not the greatest. With Hannah still being involved with work and ESA at school, she did have obligations on weekends that made it difficult to see each other more than every other weekend fall. With me no longer playing baseball, I decided to coach in the spring and that took us right back to struggling to see each other more than one weekend a month. But we made it.


After about a year of living in Davenport, Jake bought a house in Aledo in October 2019 and I moved in with him and became his roommate. The weekend his family was back I got the courage to talk to Hannah’s dad when he was outside and away from everyone. I asked his permission to marry his daughter. Then it just became a matter of figuring out how to go about proposing.


Hannah’s parents came back a few times after that and we worked on a plan. I wanted to involve her younger 3 siblings somehow. Since we had done family pictures the year before I thought that could be a good idea where she would not notice anything different. We finally came up with a way to ask her to involve the littles.


The day came and it was Thanksgiving Day in 2019. It was cold and I was nervous, causing all kinds of shaking. Finally, it was our turn to get our picture taken with the littles. They were to write something about us, take the picture, and then turn around and show us what they came up with. I knew what the chalkboards said, but Hannah had no idea. We got our picture taken, then they turned around and we read “Please say yes.” We all know I am a man of many words, so after just a few words, I got down on a knee and asked Hannah to marry me.


While COVID-19 caused 2020 to be far from what we expected, we were still able to buy a house, rescue a kitten, and rescue a puppy. Even with all of these big moments in 2020, I cannot see it topping 2021.