Sooo… we met on a trip to Colorado fall of 2020. 6 girls, and then there was Chris and Caleb in his little blue Honda, stocked with Capri Suns (very important detail). Caleb was a full blown adult while I was in my last year at Iowa State with my future very unknown. Fast forward to summer of 2021, I move to Des Moines where I accepted a job in commercial real estate and Caleb had a job in accounting. Given we both went to Iowa State University and were involved with Salt Company (college ministry), we both attended Cottage Grove Church where we were both loved meeting people within the church and serving its members. As many of our friends from our Colorado trip also were in the Des Moines area. We all watched the entire Harry Potter series (I may have fallen asleep during half of them), we played tennis, and swing danced at Miss Kitty’s together. We all formed a great community which started our friendship. After that first year in Des Moines, Caleb randomly texted me on a Monday morning, “Hey are you doing anything after work today?”… That evening he picked me up at my apartment and got smoothies a tropical smoothie and I had NO idea where this was going. He paid for me and I thought that was interesting… We hop in the car and go for a walk at Walker Johnston (we never hung out just the two of us). I can tell he’s a little nervous, but then he proceeds to say, “I don’t know if you’re already seeing someone because I’m not on social media but” and then he asks me to dinner! We go on our first date a week later which started with De Rice, then we played tennis (Caleb just started playing that summer… coincidence??), and ended with Culver’s ice cream. And that’s how it all started. Throughout the year of dating, we spent lots of time walking, cooking, dancing, traveling, and spending time with friends and family. July 7th was the day Caleb planned to propose. On the 6th the weather conditions were absolutely perfect for an engagement. Caleb had the day off and when he woke up, he decided he was going to propose a day early. I was working that day but had no plans after so Caleb planned to roller blade and go to my favorite Mexican restaurant, El Mariachi of course! Naturally we went back to our first date spot, Walker Johnston to go for a walk. He had wanted to walk with headphones in, which was unusual but I was just going with it. A little into our walk he pulls out this slideshow video he had made of our entire year together (it was almost our 1 year anniversary). At the end of the video, I saw him kneeling down on one knee with a little black box in his hand. And the rest is yet to come!