Annaliese and Jordan first met in 2020 during a South Dakota School of Mines tour. At the time, Annaliese's only impression of Jordan was that he was tall and he seemed kind of grumpy. Jordan's first impression of Annaliese was nonexistent given that he barely remembered this first encounter. Neither of them knew that they would meet again during the next school semester.

They met again in the SD Mines ROTC classes. After being in the program with each other for about a year, Annaliese, Jordan, Cameron, and Monty formed an inseparable friend group. Unbeknownst to each other, during Jordan's Junior year, he began to develop feelings for Annaliese. Jordan kept his feelings to himself until many years later.

After his college graduation in 2023, Jordan left for Seattle, Washington to work for Boeing. Neither Annaliese or Jordan thought their relationship would move past friendship. Especially, with the distance. Ten months went by. Annaliese attended a summer of fun-filled training (lol) and then headed to Georgia for two weeks. She got so bored there that she dropped a wrench on her forehead which resulted in 3 stitches. Because of this unfortunate event she decided that her ole buddy Jordan needed to know the details of her misfortune. When Annaliese called Jordan she did not expect to be on the phone with him for 3 hours. The long phone calls continued even after she returned to Rapid City for the beginning of her final semester of college.

After countless hours of phone calls, in September of 2024, Jordan mustered up the courage to ask Annaliese whether 6 Samurai or Darth Vader would win in a fight. After four more random hypotheticals, Jordan finally asked Annaliese if he could take her to their friend's wedding in October. Annaliese was so excited that she panicked for 45 seconds and then accepted Jordan's offer. But much to Jordan's chagrin, she refused to call the date, a date.

Jordan flew home from Seattle and picked Annaliese up for their "not a date" from her apartment in Rapid. They had spent a lot of time together as friends. But, attending a wedding together was new and a little nerve racking for the "not a couple" couple. Upon arrival to the wedding, they exited the car to see all of their college friends. Jordan received many questioning looks and many questions about if Annaliese was his "date" (to which he said yes, Annaliese didn't know that part). The two enjoyed the rest of their night together, eating amazing food, talking with friends, and dancing together for the first time.

Annaliese and Jordan didn't see each other in person again until Annaliese's college graduation in December of 2024. Jordan, once again, flew back to the Hills from Seattle. The two went to dinner at Murphy's Pub where they split the best Irish egg rolls in the world. They enjoyed talking about life and finally getting to spend some time together after a couple of months of being apart. After dinner, they went out for a drive through Custer State Park and stopped to hang out at Stockade Lake. They sat on the pier and looked at the beautiful, frozen scenery. It was here that Annaliese said to Jordan "It would probably be ok if you asked me to be your girlfriend now" ...So Jordan did. The couple got to spend a few days together before Jordan had to leave.

In January of 2025, Annaliese bought a plane ticket and flew all the way to Seattle, to spend some time with Jordan before he went to training in February. For their short time together, Jordan planned an action-packed couple of days.

They began their adventure out in Olympic National Park driving up to the top of Hurricane Ridge, then enjoying a short walk on the beach at Lake Crescent. They ended the first day with a 5-mile hike down Rialto beach and enjoyed the sunset together.

The next day they decided to hit the other side of Seattle and went to hike up Mt. Rainier. When Annaliese and Jordan arrived in the parking lot for Mt. Rainier they were surrounded by 20-foot snow drifts. Everyone around them had snowshoes on and they did not. But, they had driven almost 3 hours to get to Rainier so they decided to hike anyway. After beginning their jaunt up the mountain Jordan politely offered Annaliese his bottle of water. In her most poised performance to date, she dropped his water bottle, and they watched it slide all the way to the parking lot below where it struck a Park Ranger in the leg. The duo laughed and gladly let the Park Ranger take the water bottle away.

Jordan and Annaliese continued their trek up Rainier. They made it (almost) to the top of the hiking trail, due to their lack of snowshoes, they were sinking in the snow the entire time. Annaliese couldn't stop laughing as she only sank into the snow 1 for every 10 times Jordan did. To Jordan's credit, he laughed the whole hike too. Even while he was stuck in the snow. After completing their hike these two "intrepid explorers" were told that they were running out of time to leave the park, so they piled into the truck and raced out of the park. Once they reached the bottom of the mountain, they watched the beautiful sunset behind the mountain.

The rest of their time together was spent driving around Burien and Seattle, getting coffee, going to church, and genuinely enjoying their few short days together. The couple began to realize that it didn't matter what they were doing together, they simply enjoyed each other's company and conversations.

As of April, both Annaliese and Jordan were at BOLC in different states. They tried for three months to plan another date, but weren't able to get leave with both of their schedules. Instead, they spent countless hours on Facetime talking about family, faith, and their everyday happenings.

Luckily, Jordan got leave in May which landed right on Annaliese's 24th birthday. He flew from Virginia to Missouri in order to: 1) meet the grandmas 2) eat some good Missouri food and 3) SEE HIS WOMAN. The plan for the date was to go to a nice restaurant. Unfortunately for Annaliese she was dating a bum who had no nice clothes. So, Annaliese gracefully took Jordan into town to find a pair of jeans and a nice dress shirt. After MANY hours of shopping their search was complete. Jordan's outfit was finally suitable to go out with a stunning lady.

They started their date at a SCHNAZZY restaurant and enjoyed sitting, catching up, and eating shrimp together. After their time at the restaurant they began walking the streets, and taking pictures. The night culminated in the two being heckled by a group of men in gorilla suits where Jordan had to valiantly defend his woman. (In her words "I wasn't nervous as Jordan is the size of two gorillas").

After the birthday date, both Annaliese and Jordan had to go back to training until August. If swapping time zones was a sport, they would both be at least silver medalists.

Jordan graduated BOLC in June and Annaliese graduated in August. This time, Jordan flew from Seattle to Missouri to attend her graduation and drive Annaliese back to South Dakota (because she hates driving). They stopped to see Annaliese's family in Kansas City and Sioux Falls. Then Jordan's family in Volga and Brookings. Their drive consisted of many hours of Annaliese singing country music, Jordan reminding Annaliese of how excited he was to have her back in SD, and many conversations about their future together, their faith, and their relationship. These conversations confirmed for Jordan his desire to marry Annaliese.

(Note from the authors: This one is going to be very long. We love telling this story and we hope that you smile and laugh the same as we did while writing it)

Annaliese was downright convinced that Jordan wouldn't propose until December. So, she was completely oblivious to Jordan's scheming. Little did she know, a month prior Jordan had called her father in Alaska and asked him for her hand in marriage.

Before returning to the Hills Jordan and Annaliese drove all over East river to visit family. One of their final stops was to take Annaliese's mom out for a day of shopping and food. It was on this day that Jordan needed to make a stop at Riddles in order to pick up the ring that he had been looking at. In the beginning of the day Jordan and Annaliese arrived at Sara's apartment and Jordan said, "I think I'm going to go get a reign and get your mom a Mountain Dew". During this time Jordan actually did go to a gas station because he in fact did need caffeine and did get Sara her Mountain Dew. After this he ran to the Riddles 3 miles away and found the perfect ring. Unfortunately, this ring would require resizing. After 45 minutes, Annaliese figured "It probably does take that long to get a mountain dew" and Jordan's scheme lived on.

Moving on to later in the day Jordan received a call from the Riddles' sales rep while driving Annaliese and Sarah around with the caller ID literally saying, "Riddles Jewelry". Jordan quickly answered the phone, confirming that the ring was ready and then told Annaliese that it was another scam caller before quickly changing the subject.

The final act of the day was for Jordan to be able to somehow ditch Annaliese in order to pick up the ring. The way that this actually played out was towards the end of the day Sara remembered that she needed a can opener. In this moment a flash of genius came to Jordan. He remembered from his previous years of employment at Hy-Vee that they did not sell can openers. So he told Annaliese and Sara that he would drop them off and go park the car. After dropping them off he sped off to the store, while calling Kim (his mother) instructing her to call Annalise to stall for time (Thanks mom). After speeding to Riddles and getting the ring he arrived back at Hy-Vee and unfortunately the girls weren't able to find a can opener...

After acquiring the ring, Jordan and Annaliese drove back to Volga for dinner. He managed to keep the secret from her until, in a moment of weakness, he decided to show his Aunt Pat the ring. As Aunt Pat got in her car to leave, Jordan and Annaliese went to say goodbye. After Annaliese had walked 15 feet away from the car to go back inside Jordan showed Aunt Pat the ring. Annaliese would have made it back into the house, but Aunt Pat let out a yell at seeing the ring. To which Jordan snapped the ring and box back into his pocket and walked back into Linda's house. Annaliese said, "what did you show Pat?". He gave some sort of excuse and Annaliese fully believed him because she was so convinced that they were getting engaged in December.

The climax to the story began on August 31st with Annaliese and Jordan attending Fountain Springs with Jordan's mom and sister. After finishing up at church Brittany and Kim split up from the couple (secretly allowing Jordan time with his future fiancé. When Jordan was thinking about how he wanted his final date to go with Annaliese he spent time thinking about how his relationship with Annaliese worked. They enjoyed both the exciting and foreign, as well as the menial, and day to day activities. All that ever seemed to matter was the time that they got to spend together. So, the final date began with the couple going to Sam's Club to get Annalise food so she could prep for the week. After that they went to Fleet Farm as it's the best store in Rapid City. In Jordan's plan for the day, he was originally going to take Annalise to Murphy's Pub but because of his girlfriend's addiction to Culver's they decided to go there instead. It was at this time that cracks began to show for Jordan as this was the first time that he had rushed Annaliese in order to meet a timeline. After finishing up at Culver's the couple hopped in the vehicle and drove through Custer State Park and stopped at Stockade Lake (Where Jordan originally asked Annaliese to be his girlfriend)

Jordan stopped at the North side of Stockade Lake, he had planned to go to the West side and propose on the dock, but Annaliese was already out of the vehicle. She somehow managed to perfectly walk out to the lake ahead of Jordan to look at the lake and the beautiful sunset. It was at this moment, that she realized something was probably up, however, by the time she turned around Jordan was already down on one knee. Jordan began to say something extremely heartfelt, but Annaliese was so excited and surprised that she thought she was going to pass out and only heard every third word that came out of his mouth. She simply couldn't believe that she was getting the chance to marry her best friend. Upon recovering (AND SAYING YES!), she gave Jordan a kiss and a hug and promptly asked him if he could repeat what he had said to make sure she hadn't missed anything. After hearing Annaliese tell him that she wasn't paying attention and needed him to repeat the impromptu, heartfelt, profession of his love caused Jordan to have a brief heart attack. HE DIDN'T PRACTICE FOR THIS. Thankfully he was able to recover and remembered most of what he had said the first time.