It REALLY all began with a kind soul trying to return a lost bug-net in the High Sierras in the summer of 2016, but you'll have to wait to hear that story... Fast forward to New Year's Eve 2018 and our bride and groom meet for the fist time in Joshua Tree National Park, at a new years celebration. December 30th Erin arrived late and needed someone to hold the rope as she climbed, and she asked the headlamp in the darkness if he knew how to belay. He did. The next few nights held easy conversations around the fire and on the trail between Jonathan and Erin. A spark was lit, and after the countdown to 2019, Erin went so far as to ask Jonathan if she could kiss him. He obliged.

Though Jonathan was in the depths of anesthesia school, and Erin was living about 500 miles south, he sent a package, and the two of them continued to send letters back and forth (and the occasional text) for months. Despite the distance and unlikelihood that anything would come of it, they couldn't help but keep whatever this was going. By March, though, Erin was getting frustrated with the distance and ambiguity, and called for a meetup, to see what was really going on. At a beach on the Santa Barbara coast, they met again. Wasting no time, they asked hard questions, shared in vulnerability, and decided they were going to give this thing a shot.

Back where they met, on a quick weekend trip with some friends and Summer, the three of them arrived at Joshua Tree Dry Lake Bed, after a day of climbing and hiking together, to pitch camp for the night. Summer announced that she was going to go dig around with the shovel, but yelled that she had found something. A treasure chest. Inside were letters, the continuation of a story Jonathan had been writing for Erin, a story of their beginning. What followed was a reading of these letters by Jonathan, a knee and a ring, some tears and a silly photo shoot of the three of them. February 16, 2020 Erin and Jonathan were engaged to be married and the three would become a family. (Which oddly enough is the engagement date of the kind soul who found the bug-net!)