It was Feb 2016 and we had met up at the Pour House in Albany on a particularly warm night. I remember thinking how personable he was but also how goofy...his sweatshirt was inside out for the entire date. He remembers how I ghosted him the entire day and he thought I was going to stand him up. The 4 hour date flew by. We had so much in common. We met up the next afternoon for a rainy walk in the park. We bonded over our love of labs; I had two at the time, Ballad and Alisa and he gushed over his childhood lab, Cinnamon. The day after that, we met at the Parkview Pub, his hangout. The day after that we went for a walk in the mall. Pretty much everyday from then on we spent together. You get the gist. We were both grad students at UAlbany and we could empathize with each other on the struggles of life as a grad student. The commitments, the dedication and with Patrick wanting to be a social worker and myself in public health, we had a lot in common. By spring we had met all of each other's friends and family. Alisa, the GEB lab I was raising at the time was more in love with him than me at this point. We were in love. These five years have had a lot of growth on both of our parts. We rented a home together within our first year, with plenty of room for Ballad to run. We both started jobs. Then both decided to change careers and go back to school to get a BSN and MBA respectively. The love and support that we have shown each other and the ability to survive school and work while living in a 900 sq ft house during covid in which neither of us rarely leave is a testament to how much we have worked to make our relationship stronger. We decided it was time to make it official. We worked to design a custom ring using diamonds from both sides of our families. Patrick proposed in the early morning hours of Valentines Day 2021. He woke me with a kiss and asked me to marry him with the most beautiful ring I had ever seen. I couldn’t imagine it any other way.