Our Love Story: In August 2017, I woke up to a text message from Emmett inviting me to a Washington Nationals game that evening. Em and I have known each other since Ms. Carpenter's 5th grade class at Hutchison Farm Elementary School in South Riding, VA. We knew each other through Mercer Middle School and Freedom High School, but never were more than acquaintances. To be honest, I was shocked that he still had my phone number! I decided to go with him to the game. Besides, what was the worst that could happen? Worst case, the date is awkward, and I get a free game and dinner out of it. Well...the game was free. Despite what he will tell you, he did NOT pay for my dinner on our first date! However, the night went great! We spent the entire game catching up with one another and getting reacquainted. That first date was followed by another one a week later before we both had to head back to college to start our senior year. I was studying nursing at JMU, and Em was studying biological systems engineering at Virginia Tech. The fall semester included a few dates in Harrisonburg as Em would travel back to Loudoun County from Blacksburg. As the fall semester wrapped up, our dates got more frequent and more serious. We shared our first kiss outside of my college apartment, (with my MOH, Rachael on the other side of the door), and a few weeks later he officially asked me to be his girlfriend on Christmas! There is some debate on whether our anniversary is on Christmas or Christmas Eve since I opened my gift a day early.

We continued our long-distance relationship until December 2019. After graduating from Virgina Tech, Em went on to study biomedical engineering at Duke University and I moved to Arlington, VA to work as a nurse at MedStar Georgetown. Long distance was a challenge but made our bond and trust in one another much stronger than it would have been otherwise. Our long-distance relationship ended accidentally in early 2020. Em had temporarily moved in with me and my roommate, Kailey, while he was looking for an apartment in Beltsville, MD when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Em stayed with us and our years of long-distance was over!

Our relationship has continued to flourish over the years. We adopted our Siberian Husky, Sadie, in April 2021. She is such an incredible dog, and we could not imagine our lives without her. Em continued to support me when I decided to navigate graduate school while working full time. We had built our lives together and we were laying the foundation for our future. We bought our forever home together in Lovettsville, VA in August 2023 and got engaged in Ireland on September 6, 2023. Ireland was a place that we had talked about traveling to since the early days of our relationship and the proposal could not have been more perfect.

We are so excited to start our lives together and cannot wait to share it with our family and friends!