JD and Ellie met while working at Kanakuk K1 in the summer of 2022. JD had expressed the morning before they met If you're at kamp to meet a girl you are there for the wrong reason.
JD was a trip guide and Ellie was a UC for the little girls' cabins. It was time for Ellie's cabins got to go to trip for 3 days and 2 nights and JD was their Trip Guy. Once they got there, Ellie went to go check on one of her cabins and walked passed her CUTE trip guy but didn't think anything of it YET! That night, they spent some time talking by the campfire. This was also when JD was supposed to be filling up the boats with gas, but he wanted to keep catching up ;) After they spent most of Trip talking Ellie left heading back to camp with a little crush... so did JD!! At the end of the week, J.D. asked Ellie on a morning walk. Morning walks are how the staff at Kanakuk goes on dates. Unfortunately, that walk was JD's last day of work for the summer, but they spent the next several months chatting on Facetime consistently before Ellie told J.D. she had a job offer in Chicagoland which would start in November. The job had been in the works since before they had met, but it turned out to be in Wheaton, which is also where J.D. attends Wheaton College. J.D. had his first football game of the season in San Antonio, TX., which gave Ellie a great reason to go see him, so Ellie and her mom (AKA her wing women) made the drive from Dallas to J.D.'s football game where they had dinner together for the first time, along with Ellie's mom ;) After talking on FaceTime for a couple more weeks, one month later, Ellie took a trip to visit J.D. in Chicago. J.D. asked her to officially be his girlfriend on Oct. 7!! Another month later, her job started as a nanny while J.D. was in his year. They were getting to live life in Wheaton/Chicago together to go on really fun dates and adventures! Some months later JD proposed to Ellie early in the morning on April 7 in downtown Wheaton and she was so surprised! SHE SAID YES and now getting to plan and celebrate one of the best days of her (and his) life with one the most important people in her life, getting to marry her best friend.
What's next for them… WE ARE MOVING TO NORTH CAROLINA!!