Our love story would not be possible without the incredible friendship our grandparents formed years ago. Because of this lasting friendship, we have known each other our whole lives, spending summers up at Clear Lake with each other at our family cabins one house apart since we were born. Whether it was tubing, water ball tag, or hide and seek, Mark was always the best at everything, while Nicole was always trying her best to keep up. Our lifelong friendship turned into something more at the lake during the summer of 2013. At the time, we never imagined this is where we would end up, but we couldn't be happier with the outcome. Our journey was not always an easy one. We started dating that summer and dated on and off for the rest of Nicole's time away at San Diego State. Mark would come visit Nicole in San Diego from time to time, including attending a sorority formal. Summers would come around and we would be back at the lake together enjoying as much time together as we could until school started back up. Nicole moved back to Folsom after graduating college and Mark had recently moved back to Chico, which after being 10 hours apart, only an hour and half was close! We would see each other every weekend up in Chico and Mark finally decided to make things official on December 4th, 2016. After 2 years of "short distance" dating between Chico and Sacramento, we decided to jump right in and moved in together in a house in Sacramento that Nicole bought in 2018. We can happily say the hardest part of that big life step was getting our cats, Matt and Luna, to get along. Three months into living together, we were blessed with a huge life surprise, adopting our wonderful dog Penny. Penny was thrown into our lives without notice as she was being saved from an abusive situation and we could not be more thankful and lucky to have her. After three years together in our first house, we decided Penny deserved a bigger yard and we deserved a nicer neighborhood so we started the hunt for a new house. Little did we know how intense of a process this would be and how many offers we would have to put in, but we ended up in our perfect house in Loomis, CA. On Saturday, October 29th, 2022, our whole lives changed yet again for the better. Mark planned a hike at Rattlesnake Bar in Newcastle for us. It was a beautiful hike thru the hills and oak trees that led us down to a gorgeous part of the American River where we let Penny off her leash to swim. Nicole was enjoying the scenery and looking for a place to sit down and relax and turned around to find Mark on one knee. After professing his love, Mark finally popped the question and of course Nicole said YES. We proceeded to enjoy our time together at the river with Penny and FaceTimed our families to let them know the great news. We continued the celebration all day and ended the best day with an amazing dinner at our local bistro, Red's. Our life together has been nothing short of amazing. We have travelled all over the US together, been to Mexico multiple times and even made a trip to the Dominican Republic. We have our beautiful dog and four cats together that create the most loving home life. We love exploring in our camper and are always on the lookout for new fun breweries and wineries. We can't wait to start the next chapter of our lives together with all of you in May.