The ever so popular "How long have you guys been together?"

*queue Sam and I looking at each other *

'Ummm...'

For the past couple years our default answer to this has been 'somewhere between 8-10 years' but to be honest, we're not sure when it became 'exclusive'. One thing we do know is that we're forever grateful that our best pals Kaleigh and Eric introduced us. Here's a picture from 2008 that I like to call The Friend Zone.

During this time in our lives we knew two things: 1.) we had a connection 2.) we were in different places (geographically & mentally). Therefore we decided to keep things ~casual~. I was at college in Rhode Island and Sam was in Manchester going to school for firefighting. We both weren't ready to commit to a serious relationship in fear of it ruining a good thing. Over the years I would see Sam when visiting home and he made a few trips down to stay with me in RI (shout out to AIM and texting for keeping the spark alive)!

When I was in my senior year Sam decided to move to Colorado and live with Max. This is when the consistent Good Morning/Goodnight calls and texts became second nature. Once I graduated Sam suggested I join him in Colorado. Luckily my parents are amazing and were supportive of me exploring somewhere new vs. locking down a career straight out of school. Colorado will forever be a special place for us because its the first place we lived together.

Ultimately, after a few years of the ski-bum life, we chose to plant our roots back home in NH. Holy rough transition! Although we felt super grateful to be able to move back into our parents' houses, it just wasn't the same. Our plan was to save some money for a couple years, land solid jobs, and purchase our first home. If there's one thing life has taught us, it's that it doesn't always go according to plan. This took much longer than we thought it would and we ended up learning a lot during this time. Here are some of the Ups!

All the weddings!

Fireman Sam is born!

Lots of couple costumes!

The day we became Godparents to Reed!

and alas, we found our first nest.

Almost 2 years after this photo Sam popped the question and we couldn't be more excited to see where this next chapter in our relationship takes us.

FOR-EV-ERRRRRRRR