[KRISTOFF]
Love's not an easy climb:/You have to take your time!

[ANNA]
We get a whole life, that's the plan

[KRISTOFF, spoken]
That's not a plan!

~"What Do You Know About Love" Frozen the Musical

Luke and I had this argument several times throughout the course of our dating relationship. Luke is spontaneous in ways that I am not. He likes to take trips slow and not plan much of anything in advance. I am type-A, and everything is planned months in advance. I pack at least a week ahead of schedule, and I'm ready for anything. However, when it comes to relationships, I am the one who is more of a spontaneous loose cannon, and Luke is the one who wants to work through everything right away. These lyrics are very representative of the people we are in the relationship we have.

The characters Anna and Kristoff hold deep significance to us. The characters became personal to us because Anna highly resilient and cares deeply about her family, and Kristoff has a deep respect for Anna after her unfortunate experiences with her past boyfriend. (Plus, Luke's Norwegian. Double Plus, we look like them.) Also, Kristoff's "Lost in the Woods" song in Frozen 2 is Luke to a T. Anyone who has ever driven with him without a GPS will understand this.

As Luke mentioned, my parents still didn't believe that my friends were real, and they took advantage of Luke being there to force me to prove his existence. As in, they wanted me to have him over. We are still uncertain as to whether or not my dad had ulterior motives. (Spoiler Alert: They worked.)

We started dating March 3rd 2015. Luke was a perfect gentleman. Before he kissed me on our way back from our first official date, he asked me if he could kiss me. Boys in the audience, that's how it's done.

As we started to figure out housing for the following year, my summer plans for where to keep my things started to fall through the cracks. Luke and Drea were graduating, and I was going to move in with some friends. Drea was leaving for Boston, and Luke was staying in Omaha. However, the apartment I was supposed to move into with friends was suddenly not available. So, we decided to take an impromptu road trip with all of my things back home to my parent's house. However, we decided to stop in Luke's hometown on our way back to Milwaukee. The car ride consisted of a long conversation about relationships and what ours would hold.

Senior year led to many meetings of new and wonderful friends. We met many people who had been in long term relationships. We even made friends who were already married, and some who were on their way to engagement. We also managed to keep our old friends despite the distance. We welcomed Brian into our friend group, and I may or may not have interrogated the crap out of him before I allowed him to date Krista. That year was filled with a lot of wonderful memories. They include: the Corpse Bride couples costume we wore for Halloween, the decoration of our first Christmas tree, and Luke's first family trip to Oakbrook. (Yay Elf Hats!) However, we also struggled with some things. Luke's desire to work out every kink in our relationship was sometimes at odds with work that I needed to do. Yet, we managed to overcome the difficulty as we pushed forward.

Then, we entered the dreaded long distance relationship. I was adamant that I did not want to be placed in Milwaukee for my grad program in Magis. Yet, for some reason, that's exactly where I went. Milwaukee was the furthest placement one could receive from Omaha. I asked Luke if I could take the placement when it opened, and he gave me his blessing.

The first year of Magis was pretty hectic, and our communication was terrible. I was adjusting to being a first year teacher, and Luke was trying to respect the boundaries I needed as I went through the year. A love for my students was awoken in a deep way, and I realized I did not want to leave them or my family. We eventually decided that we were going to move to Milwaukee after my graduation because I couldn't bear to part with my students. There were several other factors in our decision, however, I was the most adamant about this one. This year was also filled with a lot of work on both of our parts. We were both trying and succeeding, through patient industry, to become better for each other.

The second summer after this first year of Magis was a joyful reunion. I remember mentioning that the first thing I wanted to do when I got to Omaha was kiss my boyfriend during one of our last faith sharing nights. However, strep throat had other plans. I spent the first week back from teaching sleeping and making up work. I only expected to be doing one of those things. The summer was awesome and left us with a lot of time to do the fun stuff we'd been waiting for that long time away. I was not looking forward to leaving, but we'd decided on a pretty good routine of when to call and talk to each other that upcoming year. We'd also managed to make good plans about when we would have time to meet up with each other.

The second year of Magis was stressful, but not nearly as stressful as the first. We made way more time to talk to one another than we'd planned and managed to make and keep dates to see each other. I got to witness the proposal of two of my closest friends, and I got to attend their wedding with my best friend.

I had inklings that all the hard work that we had put into our relationship was going to work out when Luke didn't flinch at booking Gesu for our wedding date ahead of the engagement. I knew the proposal had to be coming. I was excited and antsy. I wanted the rest of our lives and the fairy tale ending I'd been promised since I stole my Dad's Sony CD player to fall asleep to Phantom of the Opera to come now. However, as Luke will tell you, the wait was well worth it.

Travel

Hilton Garden Inn Milwaukee Northwest Conference Center

Four Points by Sheraton Milwaukee North Shore