Grant and Anika met ... at the Atlanta airport. Anika had been living in Hawai'i doing an internship for school and was flying back to WV to complete my last year of university. She didn't want to go from living in paradise straight back to the stress of university, so she convinced a group of people that kinda sorta knew each other by extension to do a road trip into Canada. Not everyone knew each other so it was to be quite an adventure of friends and new-friends-to-be-made. The plan was for the group to start at the bottom of the US and drive into Canada, picking everyone up along the way. As Anika was flying, she was to fly to meet the first person who lived the farthest south, and then they would carpool from there, picking up each person along the way as they traveled north through each state. So she flew into Atlanta's airport to meet a complete stranger and start the road trip. That person was Grant..... That trip sparked a relationship that was built on traveling. After spending two weeks in Canada together with this group of friends, Anika and Grant decided to do long-distance dating while Anika finished her last year of university. They flew back and forth to visit each other many times that year, and when Anika graduated, she moved down to Georgia to start their lives together.

Together at last, they went through our firsts in Marietta, Georgia. First apartment as a couple, first professional jobs, first dog (little Rose the bulldog), first foster-to-adoption (Grandma Stella the pittie), and more. They knew we wouldn't be staying in Marietta so they spent the two years there traveling, trying to figure out where to move once Grant graduated college. Historic and ghost-filled Savannah, Georgia was the next place they would call home. And what a wonderful home it was. They made wonderful friends and so many memories. But eventually, they felt the itch to move again, and after visiting Germany one thanksgiving with Anika's family, they knew that was the place. They spent the last year of their Savannah Chapter saving up and selling everything they owned. And in September 2019, they boarded a plane with Rose and 6 suitcases and flew to Berlin, Germany. (Stella was meant to follow once they got settled but due to Germany's anti-pitbull legislation and the pending pandemic, the decision was made to let her retire in WV with Anika's parents, where she still resides happily and is adored by Jeff and Luddy.) As if moving abroad isn't hard enough, they managed to do so just prior to the pandemic. In a new country, they supported each other through the nightmare that was 2020. They grew as a couple and realized they could handle anything together, and so as 2021 rolled in, Grant proposed on New Years Day.