In August of 2018, we were both on summer break before our senior year of college. Liam had returned to Colorado from his commercial fishing job in Alaska for a few weeks before heading back to school in San Luis Obispo. Mackenzie was living in Boulder with her 6 roommates and decided to go to a party at a friend's house in Vail one night. It turned out that Liam was invited to this party as well.

We didn't know each other going into this party, but someone ended up introducing us. Right away we started chatting and sipping on beers together. After only speaking for a few minutes, we started realizing that we had almost everything in common. We talked about our obvious hobbies like skiing and traveling. We shared stories and pictures of our favorite ski lines at Silverton and memories from the places in the world that we have visited. Our friends surrounded us at a big kitchen table and we were playing some sort of game. However, we were too interested in talking to each other and eventually were left out of the games.

Somehow in our conversation, the topic of Wisconsin came up. Mackenzie started sharing her favorite childhood memories on Nagawicka Lake and Liam immediately put the connection together that he was talking to a Maslowski. Liam's family lived two doors down from the Maslowskis on Nagawicka Lake. Mackenzie immediately recognized the Dunn last name and our connection grew even stronger. We realized that we have spent every summer visiting this same lake around the 4th of July. We shared our love for waterskiing, Leduc's frozen custard, fireworks, and all the amazing memories that Nagawicka gave us growing up. We felt like we had lived the same childhood. We basically did. We spent every summer within a few hundred feet of each other. It felt so crazy to us that we had gone our entire lives so close to one another, yet we had never met until that random party one night in Vail.

We ended up leaving the party together to go explore the town, get drinks, and dance the night away at Shakedown Bar in Vail. We still look back at this night and think of it as one of the best night's of our lives. We knew that we both had the biggest crushes on one another, but we weren't sure what the future would hold because Liam had to go back to school in California and Mackenzie had her senior year waiting for her at Boulder.

We ended up staying in touch and talking almost every day for our entire senior year. We couldn't stand the distance, so we took a few trips to visit each other throughout the year. Mackenzie showed Liam around Boulder and taught him how to drink a lunchbox at Pete's. And Liam invited Mackenzie on a couple of weekend trips, one was a ski trip to Lake Tahoe and another was a nauseatingly long greyhound bus trip to Las Vegas. Liam asked Mackenzie to be his girlfriend after a date night in San Louis Obispo where we got burritos and visited a gorgeous cliffside hot spring.

After we graduated, Liam moved back home to Colorado and we began our lives together. We got our first real jobs and started experiencing the adult world in Denver. We felt ready to take the next step, and here is where our giant fluffy dog Yukon came into the picture. We quickly realized that we were in over our heads with this insane puppy, but our love for him made it all worth it.

After spending a couple of years in Denver, we realized that the city life just wasn't for us. This inspired us to get new jobs, pack up our things, and move up to Carbondale. Yukon is a mountain dog anyway, the city wasn't right for him either. The three of us love our happy little mountain life and hopefully plan to stay here forever.

In February of 2024 Liam took Mackenzie on a ski trip to the Austrian Alps. Cormac tagged along too. We were spending our days skiing, enjoying the incredible views, drinking Austrian beer, and dancing at après bars. One day while we were skiing at Silvretta Montafon, we were on top of a peak with no one else around. We stopped to admire the incredible views and Liam got down on one knee to ask the big question. Mackenzie said yes and couldn't stop crying and smiling. Luckily, we had Cormac there to document with photos and videos of the amazing moment. We spent the rest of that day skiing to different mountain huts where we celebrated with champagne and charcuterie. This quickly became the new best day of our lives.

We can't wait for the next chapter in our love story and everything that marriage has in store for us. Soon we will be exchanging vows in Ridgway, Colorado and celebrating with all of our friends, family, and loved ones. Cheers!