Kyle and I first met at a local bar. We were both hanging out with Fareway friends at the time. Kyle was feeling confident and insisted on talking to me about my teaching career. I was finally able to ditch him later that night and said to myself, "Wow, he's a lot to handle."

We ran into each other a second time at a mutual friend's apartment for game night. We had fun playing games and telling stories with our friends, but barely spoke to each other. At the end of the night, I thought to myself "Well, maybe he's not that bad."

Fast forward to the weekend of my 24th birthday. I was out with the same Fareway friends celebrating at another one of Indianola's local drinking establishments, when Kyle rolled in with his friends. At that point, I had just received the cutest penguin cake and had finished off a few drinks. Life was good. Kyle had just finished seeing the new Lego movie and saw the opportunity to make another impression. From there the rest is absolute history. We were almost inseparable the rest of the night. That night I went home thinking, "Maybe this could work out."

Kyle & I went to the Lake of the Ozarks with his family in August. I had long since forgotten about my theory that he would propose during the summer. It was right before school started and I was starting to feel the beginning of the year crazy that so many teachers experience annually.

I had a day trip planned for Friday. Kyle and I spent the morning walking through caves at a state park. We got in the car and headed to Ha Ha Tonka, where we planned on hiking the rest of the afternoon. The roads were curvy, and the GPS wasn't working, but we finally made it. We ate lunch and then started off.

We walked to the old castle, to the water tower, and kept walking. I was getting tired and my lunch had worn off. Kyle was persistent and kept walking, which surprised me because he likes to relax on his vacations. We finally got down to the forest floor and went under a natural land bridge. It was absolutely beautiful (and cool)! We came to a part of the path that split with a boulder in the middle of it. I told Kyle that we were not going that way, for fear of getting lost or rolling an ankle. He saw a rock with an "x" carved into it and had me sit down. While I proceeded to complain about being tired he got down on one knee (and truly, I was still not aware of what he was doing). He said "Michelle Marie...is that you middle name...Stolz. Will you marry me?" I'm not entirely sure that I actually said "yes," but he slid the ring on my finger and we started planning a wedding!