Our story begins with two people walking down two separate paths.

Those paths began to converge in a church class somewhere around 2018. Or 2019. At the time, neither knew it was an important, life-altering event.

Lisa noticed Nate because he wore a black cowboy hat and participated in class. Nate did not notice Lisa because she was quiet.

In 2020, Lisa began taking riding lessons with Nate's mom, Pat. Occasionally she & Nate would interact when he came to the farm to shoe horses. She found his knowledge & experience with horses impressive and somewhat intimidating, but he liked to talk about the horses and it was nice for him to have someone willing to listen.

During one of the times Nate was over shoeing, Nate's mom suggested he talk to Lisa about her desire to change careers. Her main issue was her fear of potentially losing her health insurance. Nate, thinking she was much younger than she was, asked if it was possible to go back onto her parent's insurance. She was a little taken aback, asking "doesn't that stop at age 26"? While Nate was not looking at her in a romantic way at that point, it did stick with him that she wasn't quite as young as he first thought.

Over the summer of 2022, Nate's mom hosted several BBQs at her farm. The final BBQ Nate put on, and it is where two paths converge more decisively. Lisa, who Pat had invited to help wrangle kids, spent most of the evening running around the back pasture with a group of hobbits, entertaining them with her stuffed dragons. Nate saw the joy that she had with the kids and the joy that she brought to them.

When the kids had gone home, she joined the adults and Nate observed with growing interest how conversation sparkled when she was around. Where she was, wholesomeness and kindness abounded.

After the BBQ, she could not in good conscience, leave Pat and the rest of the Feiferts to clean up alone, and stayed to help.

Nate invited her to the Bible study he had been leading for many years, the one that Pat had been inviting Lisa out to for the past 2 years. And this time, there was no scheduling conflict, no reason to say no.

Four months later, after several attempts at flirting, Nate's mom told him he was being so obvious, he had better be direct. Somewhat humorously, in spite of being obvious to many others, his efforts at getting her attention went entirely unnoticed by the intended recipient.

Being sure of his resolve, he talked to her father to get his blessing, and then texted her an invitation to "have dinner, just the two of them, to get to know each other better, outside the group settings where they had previously interacted."

At first, Lisa thought she was misinterpreting the request. It sounded like he was asking her out on a date. But that couldn't be it, right?

But after 3 days of putting off answering him, and after receiving counsel from friends and family, she decided to give Nate a chance. She didn't have any real reason not to go out with him. She could put up with one date, and she was kind-of curious.

Even though the restaurant was loud, the conversation was good! It was the first of many deep conversations, and the only date that didn't end with them sitting in the driveway talking for another hour.

This led to many more dates and conversations and long walks and day hikes and a few lake days and going to the Rennaissance Faire in medieval garb.

Nate was fairly sure of where he wanted the relationship to go from the first date. He wanted Lisa in his life! Lisa was happy to be pursued, but was much more cautious.

Over time, her fear lessened and the fear of not being together became greater than the fear of committing, before God, to a lifetime together.

On August 16th, Nate took Lisa to a park where they had spent many dates and was special to both of them. They would have a picnic dinner & a walk. Nate, subtle as ever, suggested he pick up dinner from the restaurant where they had their first date, and came in a dress shirt and tie (he was wearing pants as well).

Lisa, oblivious as ever, didn't pick up on this as anything unusual. As they walked, they pointed out placed they had stopped on other dates. Eventually, they reached a specific bend in the creek, and Nate said, "Let's get a picture." He propped up his phone in the crook of a tree trunk and started filming as he and Lisa reminisced about the first time they had wandered down this stretch of trail and the special moment they had shared.

Lisa mentioned that it would be the perfect place for him to propose, except the engagement ring they had chosen together wasn't complete. They had an appointment with the jeweler the next day to see if they could find the perfect sapphire. But, to her shock and confusion, Nate got down on one knee and pulled a box out of his pocket.

They had talked about making "mock rings" as placeholders, so they could send out the announcement announcements. Was he going to propose with a piece of hand crafted wire? Now that she had made her decision, she wouldn't have been unhappy if he had.

But no... he opened the box and a blue stone glimmered in the evening light, filtering though the leaves of the green canopy overhead.

She said yes to the question he managed to get out and, while he picked her up and twirled her gently, still slightly in shock that she was now his fiancé, she asked if they needed to cancel the appointment with the jeweler.

Nate and Lisa have found that they have a fully stocked kitchen and house. They intend to spend a lot of quality time together hiking and adventuring. The registry reflects this.