lets get married

A few summers ago, I took a morning adventure to a coffee shop to job search and meet a new girlfriend who had just moved to Denver. I don’t believe in fate much but I do believe that people come into your life for a reason. *Enter Alex Evans* My new friend let me know her highschool pal was in town this weekend. She showed me a picture and I was initially swooned, but I couldn’t really imagine this handsome fellow actually being interested in a weirdo like me so I let it pass. Little did I know- we actually would meet that weekend. And upon stealing his Patagonia hat at a music festival, I had caught his interest. I soon realized this was far from his only piece of Patagonia clothing he owned, so… he must have actually like me and wasn’t in this just to get his hat back. From there on we started conversing. He worked building wind farms which meant he lived in Nebraska for 3 weeks out of the month and traveled the other week. This meant getting to know each other would happen pretty slowly and also realizing… we genuinely liked each other. Various adventures including trips helping him move around the country led me to realize I would really enjoy him living in the same city as me. I couldn’t have predicted this would mean I would leave my beloved home of Denver to live in Limon, Colorado, but the universe has funny ways of testing your ideals. I trusted this life would give us some unique opportunities and boy was that intuition right. From buying an adventure van and our first international trip to Iceland, to moving all our belongings during an April Minnesota snowstorm, to living in a cozy studio above a bar in Mendota, IL, the last couple years have been filled with some of the most surreal experiences of my life. And through each of these experiences I realized more and more that there is no one else I want to have these with.

Not a lot went perfect in these moments, except that that's what made them perfect. We would laugh when things were hard. Recognize and be grateful when things were easy. And love each other through all those moments in between. And who wouldn’t day dream of spending life with this human? On our trip to South Africa the day dream became a reality (even though for weeks after I still had to reassure myself it had actually happened). And while we were very sick through most of our now engagement trip, this only solidified my confidence in our love. Double ear infections for 48 hours of international travel is a test I couldn't wish on my worst enemy. But luckily… I got to go through it with my best friend. And so takes us to today! June 2020 couldn’t come soon enough and we are very excited to celebrate this moment with all of you :)

It was a hot Summer day in Denver, and I was on the tail end of one of my “rotations”, where I left the sights and sounds of O’Neill, Nebraska behind for 1 week each month to explore greener pastures. I returned from the Telluride Bluegrass Festival to Alex and Paulz Evans’ apartment and was informed that they had plans for me that involved several PBR’s, a cute girl from Iowa, and some bad EDM music. I figured 2 out of 3 weren’t bad, found my favorite Hawaiian shirt, and we were off! Once at the festival, I kept looking around for Megan with the funny spelling, but she was nowhere to be found. After several hours of Matt and Kim singing along to other people’s music, I was beginning to lose hope, and wandered off for a round of drinks that would change my life forever. While en route, I was attacked by a small creature with cat like swiftness, and left confused and hatless. I looked ahead and Meghan was donning my hat, providing the first glimpse of the smile that I would hopelessly pursue for the rest of my life. We spent the rest of the night dancing, laughing with friends, and debating the finer points of the role of religion in modern society (thanks Paulz). I couldn’t believe how lucky I was to have met Meagan, and also knew that she was likely to occupy my headspace for a significant portion of my next month back in O’Neill. We talked as I drove back that day, she provided the melodramatic soundtrack that I pretended I liked, and we agreed that we would like to see each other the next time I was in town.

Fast forward through a few long months of incessant texting, spontaneous meet ups, and learning how to spell Maegan, and I was fortunate enough to get the opportunity to move back to Colorado and spend more time with the girl I couldn’t get enough of. Our relationship really blossomed at this time, which made it nearly impossible for me to get back out on the road for work and move to San Antonio (and Minneapolis, and Limon, and Nebraska). While this was incredibly challenging, the distance truly strengthened our feelings and made our time together truly special. By October of 2017, we had experienced enough time apart and began our nomadic life together. We’ve shared countless unforgettable trips, long nights on a wind farm, and embarked on #vanlyfe in this time, and each and every experience reassures me that MAEGAN is who I want to spend my life with.

Landing in South Africa, we were convinced this virus we'd had over the last two weeks could simply not last through the beautiful sunshine and jaw dropping scenes we were about to encounter. Turns out it had other plans for us. As we arrived at the first hotel late Saturday night, we decided to get as much rest as we could and tried to manifest only health through every thought we had. We woke up that morning, not feeling much better, but still full of hope and we quickly forgot we were even sick as we had a beautiful outdoor breakfast and some of the best coffee we'd ever had. We moved into our new little studio Airbnb that we'd stay in for the next couple days and were off to the Kirstenbosch Gardens. If you know Maegan, you know she spent way too much time in the scensory gardens smelling and tasting most of the plants. And if you know Andy you know he was being extremely patient and shared in her excitement. After crossing over a canopy walkway over the tops of national garden trees, we came to a beautiful opening that Andy suggested would be great for a self timed photo. When you travel with one other person it is rare to get you both in a photograph, and Maegan was so excited to get both people in one picture. She got down and set up what she thought was the most amazingly framed, spectacular shot, only to run back and have Andy say we should probably try again. "Fine. Couldn't hurt," she thought. This time she REALLY set it up. Got the colors perfectly set, the backdrop was perfectly aligned...10, 9, (run fast Maegan), 8, 7, 6, (seriously hurry!), 5, 4, 3, ... back just in time only to be very confused why Andy was on the ground.... 2, 1. See picture above.