Andrew and I met in late 2016 when we were both taking early morning classes at Industrial Strength Gym. I'm a morning person, so classes were my social hour. Andrew is a night owl, so I think my energy might have been a bit too much for him initially :).


With some coaxing from friends, I eventually began taking one of the advanced evening kettlebell classes, which he coincidentally was also a regular at. Among our competitive athletic spirits, this is where a better friendship began to form. We'd often grab dinner and a drink with other friends after class, and that led to planning a day trip to boat around Anderson Island in the Puget Sound. At this point I had told a few of my girlfriends about the small curiosity I had growing for this guy- He seems great, but I can't figure him out.


I offered to drive up for boat day, and Andrew ended up being my sole passenger when another friend cancelled. My initial thought was Okay. This might be a little awkward for a 4 hour drive. We didn't know each other overly well, and he was a little quiet/unassuming. Thankfully, conversation flowed easily (let's be honest- I could make conversation with a wall), and our similar taste in music made the I-5 scenery a little less painful. There were additional snafus with the rest of boat day, which ended up with no boat at all, and only a few hours on the island before we had to turn around and drive home. The Ferry was delayed- we sat in the car line for well over an hour- and all I had to offer him was warm, cheap, gluten-free beer (basically motor oil to a craft beer connoisseur like Andrew). He kept me alert and laughing with random stories while driving back down I-5, and after arriving in Portland well after midnight, we had probably spent 9+ hours in the car that day. It was the best trip on a boring highway I'd ever had. We hugged goodbye, and both lamented the long Monday to come. Interestingly, I still didn't have too much detailed personal information to report back to my girlfriends about this guy, but as I laid my head on my pillow that night, I did know that he was someone special.


Our friendship continued to be platonic and slow growing. I had a particularly bad day when an important surgery I needed was cancelled. Andrew could tell I was upset in class, and offered to take me out for a drink afterwards. His supportive companionship eased my frustration, and I was reminded of how genuine and thoughtful he always seemed- Cue the continued curiosity. I could tell it was maybe mutual at this point, especially when he began to poke fun at me. Whether it be for my delight of pumpkin-flavored foods, or how painfully long it took me to put together new bar stools, his subtle flirting began coming out.


I invited our Kettlebell group over for a dinner that next week. We shared food, drinks, and a lot of laughs for several hours around my fireplace. As people gathered to leave, Andrew offered to stay and help me clean up the kitchen... because every girl wants their first kiss with their crush to be coupled with a handful of dirty dishes. But really, it was perfectly imperfect. Our paths joined together shortly after that night, and it's been the best time of my life since.

In the spring of 2021 and needing some sunshine away from Portland, we headed to the Big Island of Hawaii. Andrew had a outline of the proposal but still needed to fill in the details like when and where.


As we figured out our day trips of visiting beaches and other areas of the Island, we planned a long drive to the south end of the Island's green sand beach. This beautiful and unique beach was a perfect adventure to spend the day together exploring and eventually finding a romantic spot to propose. However, the day did not start off as well as we had expected.


Driving toward the most southern point of the 50 states, we could see that we were leaving the sunny skies in the northwest of the island and toward potential torrential rains as the dark clouds encompassed the south. We both were feeling apprehensive and even a little stressed as we knew that there was three ways to reach the beach: drive our rental jeep through the unpaved, winding rocky roads for a few miles, hike an hour each way or pay a local to drive you. Our plan was to check out the roads and if it was as bad as we heard to drive, we would hike our way there. With the rain clouds looking so ominous this was not looking good. After some careful negotiations Andrew was able to convince Lindsey this would all work out. As we approached the final few turns to arrive at the trailhead the weather looked like it was going to cooperate. Waving off the local driver's offers we made our own way down the road in our jeep. Since Andrew knew what he had in mind for the day and after evaluating how jagged the rocks were, he decided that changing a tire on a trail was not the proposal he envisioned. We parked the car and decided to hike the rest of the way. After about a mile of walking in warm and very humid conditions, neither of us were feeling our best and that's when things took another bad turn. The rain from earlier in the week had left the trails very muddy and as Lindsey attempted to step around a large puddle her foot got stuck in mud up to her ankle. As she took her next step her entire foot came out of her shoe leaving her shoe buried in mud. Suppressing a laugh, Andrew helped Lindsey retrieve her shoe. Frustrated, hot and sweaty Lindsey agreed to press onward for the remaining mile or two in the hike.


Andrew recalls feeling a sense of humor around the entirety of the days events thus far as either way we had a funny story about a hike that delayed our proposal or added to adventure of it. Finally reaching the beautiful inlet of light green sand we settled in for a picnic on the beach. The beach was fairly crowded so Andrew looked for a more secluded area and and spotted a point high above the beach that we could walk to on our way out. This would have been one of the most scenic spots for a special moment, alas we had to fight through a number of people taking endless selfies.


This is where time was no longer on our side as Andrew had made reservations at a nice restaurant with the intention of that being our engagement celebration dinner together. We hired a local for a ride back to our jeep to save some time (and avoid anymore shoe mishaps). As quickly as possible, Andrew looked at his list of beaches that he had saved and headed off to the next stop back to the resort. As we approached the next beach, Lindsey had dozed off in the car. Tired and very sweaty from the heat, we would have to move to plan C. Get to our beach side dinner reservations as early as possible, watch the sunset, propose have a wonderful dinner! Had Andrew not made the detour to the second beach this would have worked out.


We wanted to enjoy the sunset and would not have arrived at the restaurant in time to see it so we watched from our beach resort and drove to the restaurant post sunset. We still had plenty of time to explore the grounds before sitting for dinner and as this was still intended to be a celebratory meal, Andrew stopped us on a private area on the beach. He proposed just before we were due to sit for dinner. We enjoyed a wonderful meal as we contacted our friends and family to let them know the good news.


The day was unpredictable, adventurous, stressful, and filled with uncertainty but for us it couldn't have been more perfect.