In January of 2013, I met Austin on the internet...mostly by accident. I thought he was cute and sent him a message. I had no idea what I had started that day. We texted back and forth for a little bit, getting to know each other. One of my favorite things is the first time he ever called me on the phone we talked for hours. We started talking in the evening and we didn't hang up till I was in the parking lot at work at 6AM the next morning. It didn't even seem like we had talked all night. He was so sweet and easy to talk to.

We would text, have phone calls and skype dates all the time. We talked a lot about wanting to meet face to face, this seemed like it might be the real deal. In March of 2013, Austin flew into Seattle for a weekend visit. I think his friends thought he was crazy to fly 900 miles to visit a girl he didn't know. But it went amazing. It was one of the best weekends ever. Pretty sure we both fell in love that weekend. Austin and I visited back and forth every 2-4 months, doing a long distance relationship for one year and 5 months. We decided enough was enough and this needed to change.

I was working at Chase bank and was easily able to transfer branches so I started reaching out to different branches in the Salt Lake Valley. I finally found a position to transfer to in Draper,UT where I'd even get a pay raise. Then started the craziness of moving 900 miles, living with a man for the first time, and being far away from any family...pretty scary.

This year I hit 4 years of living in Utah and with Austin. It has been amazing. We've lived in three different apartments and made countless memories. Marriage and children was always talked about constantly. We knew we both wanted a whole mess of kids but being married first was important to both of us. As time went on we both became more and more baby hungry, so marriage had to be getting close.

Then the best day...

On December 2,2018 Austin and I woke up to the first decent snow of the year. If you don't know, i LOVE the snow. Living in Western Washington my whole life, we didn't get much snow. So now I'm taking advantage of it. Anyway...Austin had the great idea that we should go up to Brighton at the top of Big Cottonwood Canyon, somewhere we spent countless afternoons walking around the lake, spending time together, and walk around the lake in the snow. Little did I know he had a plan, and i unintentionally tried to ruin it. I shot him down saying no, Brighton closes the lake when it snows so no one can walk around it. Poor guy. He says we could always go and see. I agreed, worst case its a beautiful drive up the mountain, which we also love doing. So finally i agreed, lets drive up there and see, thinking we're wasting our time.

So we go on our drive, get to Brighton and just like I thought we can't walk around the lake. And I made sure to point that out. So Austin says we should walk around the parking lot a bit, which i thought was weird. He looked like he was looking for something. We finally stop over in a nice snowy spot, It's still snowing. I took out my phone to take a snapchat video so everyone could see how pretty. I filmed in a circle and Austin was behind me. I stopped my video and shared it, then I turned around. And this guy. Oh my goodness. He's on his freaking knee! In the snow! Holding a ring! What?! Is this real life? I thought for a moment it was a mean trick so I awkwardly stood there. I remembered back to when we had a serious conversation that pretend proposals are not funny, I'm pretty sure I threatened to punch him in the throat if he ever did that. Then those magic words I've been dreaming of for about six years. Will you marry me? I don't think I could even speak. Austin says I never answered but I know I said I teeny tiny yes and nodded. He tried to put the ring on me but I wanted to look at it first. It was so beautiful. And I wasn't expecting it. I told him he could get me a cheap band if he wanted, I just wanted to be married. But he surprised me with the most beautiful ring and picked it out himself, which made it even more special.

Now it's been a whirlwind of looking up all the wedding stuff I want and talking Austin's ear off, poor guy. It's been the most fun. I cant wait till our special day when we can be married and start our lives together as Andersons <3