A new adventure!

I knew “of” Lindsay through friends of friends before we officially met. It was the last semester of my senior (or super duper senior) year of college at OU. I was on the video team of an advertising club called Lindsey + Asp, and, as it happened, Lindsay was the new video team leader for the semester. Frankly, Lindsay was my boss. At one of our weekly meetings, Lindsay inquired about the team’s plans for spring break. No one had any sort of plans except for me. Or maybe I only had an idea: go west. I casually asked if anyone was interested in joining me on a road trip to sunny southern California. To my surprise and delight, a supremely talented cohort, and previous video team leader, Johnny, promptly volunteered to accompany me. And, after a brief moment, Lindsay also tossed her name into the hat, and the duo became a trio. A couple weeks later, we loaded up my car and set off on a life-altering adventure, one that might not have happened if Lindsay hadn’t stepped up to plan the details that my aloof excitement tends to overlook. Thankfully, she color coded the itinerary spreadsheet and included day-to-day driving instructions and destination details. Being trapped together in a car, tent, and hostel for a week really forced us to get to know each other very well very quickly, but there was one day in particular that Lindsay and I really connected. We were hiking through my favorite place, Joshua Tree National Park, when Johnny boulder-hopped away on his own adventure, and Lindsay and I found ourselves alone together. This solitude allowed us the opportunity to get to know each other one-on-one. That turned out to be the best day of my life. We told stories, exchanged jokes, and laughed harder than either of us had laughed in a long time. From that moment on, we were best friends and totally inseparable. The falling in love part happened gradually, over the next year. Our friendship evolved into a beautiful partnership full of trust, kindness, laughter, joy, and support. I’m getting emotional writing about this as I realize just how impactful Lindsay has been in my life. I don’t want to imagine what kind of person I would be without her. That week of driving to and from California changed my life forever in the best way.

In the spring semester of my junior year of college, I was the leader of a team of videographers in the student-run advertising agency at OU. Thorpe and I had both been members of the club the previous semester, but I'd never met him, just heard of him. When I started to lead the group, I finally got to meet the elusive Thorpe and he finally got to read my weekly emails to the group that were very organized. During one of our weekly team meetings, I started things off by asking the group if anyone had spring break plans. Thorpe said, "I'm driving to California, anyone else wanna come?" Our mutual friend Johnny said he was in. I'm not sure what prompted me to hop in the car with an acquaintance and drive across the country. Maybe I wanted to have a quintessential college road trip. Maybe I was counting on Johnny to defend us both if Thorpe turned out to be crazy. Whatever the reason, I said I'd join them on the adventure, and two weeks later we were in the car headed west. The drive from Oklahoma to LA is not a short one, and we had plenty of time to get to know each other. I had put together a PDF with hundreds of conversation starter/would you rather questions. I asked Thorpe whether he would rather have a tennis ball sized head or a watermelon sized head. He suggested that we listen to music for a while. It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship. We visited Joshua Tree National Park and bonded while we cracked jokes and hopped across boulders. Thorpe made me laugh like I had never laughed before. He looked effortlessly cool with his black shirt/black jeans/white reeboks wardrobe, and he seemed to know a little bit about everything. I just wanted to keep talking to him, and apparently 3,000 miles in the car was not enough time. When the road trip was over, we just never stopped hanging out. I formed a new habit of walking out of class and immediately calling Thorpe to ask him what he'd been doing for the last two hours. And if he wanted to go get queso. We spent summer mornings eating breakfast burritos and watching FIFA world cup games and summer afternoons in the pool. And it all just seemed so easy. By the end of the summer, we started referring to each other as "best friends." We casually told each other that we loved each other all the time, because we did. We were attached at the hip, and we were asked more than once by other friends if we were dating. We'd shrug and say "no, we're just best friends," and they'd ask, "Are you sure?" They knew well before we did, but I don't regret taking our time for a minute. By the time we went on our first "date," we'd driven across the country together, eaten countless meals together, watched movies together, knew pretty much everything about each other and had said the "love" word to each other months ago. And I still got butterflies when we first held hands. This partnership has been one of the sweetest friendships of my life, and getting to know and love Thorpe has been (and will continue to be) my favorite adventure. Thank you to all of those who have supported (and nudged) us along the way, and we can't wait to celebrate with everyone in June. ❤

On the fourth anniversary of our first trip to Joshua Tree National Park, Lindsay and I decided to spend a week re-living some experiences in our (my) favorite place, with a couple of exceptions. On each trip before, we were accompanied by some wonderful friends, but we wanted this experience to be different. And so we opted to vacation on our own, and spend the whole week solely at Joshua tree. In the past, we typically split our time between different national parks or visits to LA , but this trip was intended to be an homage to our origin story. We already knew the park would be beautiful, but boy did we really luck out with incredible weather and lush, blooming foliage. It seemed as if the park knew we were coming, and, more importantly, knew our intentions. Now it is at this time that I would like to acknowledge that I am wholly unable keep a happy surprise a secret, and Lindsay is always compelled to plan all of our adventures. That being said, Lindsay was well aware that I would be proposing on this trip long before we hopped in the car and drove halfway across the country. Now that we are all in on the secret, let me continue. We spent a wonderful week exploring our favorite park, and it couldn’t have been more picture-perfect. Literally, we took engagement photos while we were there. That’s how well I keep secrets. I saved the all-important question until our last day of the trip. It just so happened that this was exactly, to the day, 4 years after we spent our first day getting to know each other in Joshua tree. Only this time, we were exploring a part of the park we had never seen before. As we pulled up to a wild patch of ocotillo, which just happens to be Lindsay’s favorite desert plant, I knew the moment had arrived. We walked from ocotillo bush to ocotillo bush, admiring the long, spiny branches and vibrant red-orange flowers. With Lindsay’s back to me, I got down on one knee, and pulled out a ring of copper and quartz that we had purchased from a gift shop earlier that week. When she turned around, I muttered the most romantic and inspired bit of “I love you, will you marry me, etc” that anyone has ever heard. Lindsay, beaming from ear to ear, made me the happiest person in the world when she accepted my proposal. While the moment itself was beautiful and special, the real clarity was in the fact that we didn’t feel like a huge change had just taken place in our relationship. It felt like we knew where we were headed all along, and that this was just another mile marker on our loving journey, destination: forever.

For the past few years, Thorpe and I have journeyed west for spring break. Partly because it's our origin story, and partly because we just really love the desert. Sometime during winter 2021, Thorpe suggested that we go west again this spring. Okay, seems pretty reasonable. Then he told me that he was going to plan the road trip this time - Hold up! This is officially fishy. I am a planner by nature. I like doing research. I like putting together folders with all of our campsite bookings and hotel confirmation codes, and then using my Apple Wallet to actually check-in to those places, but sleeping peacefully knowing that in the glove box of my car, the paper copies are waiting for me just in case I need them. When Thorpe mentioned that we now have a road-trip to plan, I just couldn't help myself. Within two days I had all the campsites booked and ready to go. So, after planning my engagement road trip and doing a terrible job at keeping it a secret from everyone I know, we headed west. It was beautiful... I know some people don't see the beauty in the desert, but Joshua Tree is truly magnificent. I knew the proposal was coming, but I didn't know exactly when. On our first day in the park, we stopped at a local shop and picked out a copper and quartz ring. Thorpe told me I wasn't allowed to wear it until he actually proposed, but I loved it and I wore it all week anyway. We spent the whole week soaking up the sun, and on our last day we drove through a part of the park we had never been to before. We stumbled across an Ocotillo patch that we didn't know the park had. I fell in love with the Ocotillo plant on a previous trip to Saguaro National Park. If you've never seen it before, google it! It is a crazy cool plant that grows massive, spiny branches that reach into the sky and sprout brilliant red flowers. It seemed like fate that on our last day, as Thorpe was waiting for the "right" moment, we came across a field of Ocotillo. We hopped out of the car and walked from plant to plant, admiring each one's beauty. At some point, I was looking up at the flowers of an Ocotillo when Thorpe got down on one knee and popped the question. It was just us, alone with the birds and the sun, four years exactly to the day when we became friends in the same park. What a dream! In case you're wondering, I said yes 😉