I first met Samuel in 2023 during my junior year. Even though we are the same year of school, I did not know of him until junior year! That is crazy! Anyways, we were both RAs, and our teams worked together on various events. I thought it would be nice to get to know him better and see if anything happened, but there were not many moments to get to know one another. I was knee-deep in learning how to become an ASL interpreter, and Samuel was in his soccer season. Nothing happened during the first semester, and he was just a "co-worker" to me at this point. Then, the second semester rolled around, and everything changed.

Samuel started pursuing me around Valentine’s Day by sending me an anonymous soda crush. I thought it was from one of my girlfriends, so I went on a hunt to figure out who it was. I eventually found out it was from him and waited till he started pursuing me. A couple of months after getting to know each other, he asked me to be his girlfriend on April 25th, 2024. One of our first dates was putt-putt. Let's just say we still argue about who really won that day haha.

Once the semester ended in early May, we started off our long-distance relationship. I saw him a few times during the summer. We both went on a mission trip with our college to Ecuador, and that was a lot of fun. The summer of being long distance really taught us to be intentional and learn a lot about each other which helped our relationship become even stronger.

Once college started again, we finally got to date in person! This was a whole new learning curve because, before this time, we really did not have the opportunity to go on many "official" dates. For our first date back, we went to the zoo and fed giraffes!

We started to have a lot of fun just doing life together, hanging out with friends, doing homework (not really that part haha), and growing together. I had a couple part part-time jobs during this time so he would come sit with me during my Kona shifts which made the time go much faster.

For our 6 month anniversary. Samuel planned a whole Sunday day trip for us to celebrate. He took me to the Navy Pier in Chicago! We walked around, saw some of the sights, and hammocked in the park. Then he took me to Indiana Dunes to watch the sunset. It was such a beautiful night! After the sunset, he took me out to eat and we walked around the River Walk a little bit. He was very intentional with what he planned and I had a blast celebrating our 6 months. This was when we started to talk seriously about our timeline and what we felt was the right time for everything.

For Thanksgiving, Samuel came down to meet some extended family. It was fun to introduce him to family and friends who only knew him by name. Then I met some of his extended family at the beginning of December.

As the fall semester drew to a close, we were back to long distance and started to seriously talk about when we would want to get married and when we should get engaged. We had a whole timeline laid out and were planning on getting engaged once I got back from my internship and Samuel returned from Nigeria, but Samuel had different plans…

Samuel proposed! It was a complete surprise! He planned everything so well. He planned for us to go on one more date before I left for Texas. He took me to special places during our dating season so far and gave me a gift at each spot. I was clueless and did not expect anything for multiple reasons. Long story short, the last place he took me was Indiana Dunes and while the sun was setting, he proposed!