We met on a Tinder date for a quick drink after work. Ben was immediately attracted to Anna's seemingly adventurous spirit, and her promise that she will take a selfie with every cat she meets. Anna was attracted to Ben's smile, stories of his recent travels, and (many) stories of growing up on a farm in Pennsylvania (with a lot of cats). After almost a year of dating, and during spring of 2020, Anna was heading off to graduate school to get her MFA in Painting, at the University of Texas at Austin, and Ben surprised her by asking if he could come with. They moved to Texas during the peak pandemic, and immediately adopted a cat (Darla). After three years in there, an MFA, a dog (Louis), another cat (Elbert), and Ben getting diagnosed with cancer and undergoing successful treatment (he's now been in remission for two years), we are excited to finally get married (and get out of Texas soon!).

From Anna's Perspective: Ben and I first spoke about getting engaged October of 2022, and decided we both wanted to. We agreed he could surprise me with the actual proposal to keep it fun and exciting, but when we agreed to this, I was expecting a 2-3 month timeline. After about eight weeks of waiting and no whiff of a proposal, I became so consumed by the anticipate of it that every time Ben acted *slightly* strange, dressed up, said he wanted to go out to dinner, etc, I would become convinced that that was the time, it was about to happen... It never did... Now, cut to eight months later... At this point I've completely given up on a proposal ever happening, and just start teasing Ben about it to alleviate my own anticipation of the event (I am not great with surprises, I admit). While all this is happening my friend Katherine and I decide to take a short weekend trip to San Luis Obispo, CA, to reminisce about our undergrad days at Cal Poly and escape the Texas heat. Leading up to the trip, I start teasing Ben that he's going to fly out and surprise propose to me. He very convincingly denies he would have the time or energy to do this. I foolishly believe him. I arrive in SLO with my friend, and, both of us being the planning type, we have a detailed itinerary for most of our time there. Katherine was strangely insistent we wait until our last day to go to this nearby State Park called Montana de Oro, which I mainly assumed was just her being a bit stubborn (this is not unusual on our travels together...). While Katherine and I are out doing fun SLO things like kayaking and hiking and eating good food, we're continually joking how many of these places would make great proposal spots for Ben, if only he was better at planning and would have come with on the trip to surprise me. Katherine laughs along, and even films little phone videos for me to send to Ben teasing him about what great proposal spots he's missing. We get to our last day in town, and I am rushing Katherine to get ready so we can drive to the state park, because I've been excited to go there and have been waiting patiently for three days at this point. She is texting a lot, and generally acting strangely on the drive over. We begin our hike along this shrubby beach cliff trail, and she keeps trying to get me to walk down these little overgrown side trails. I am not interested in getting covered in bugs while bush-whacking, and patiently wait for her to come back to the main trail each time. We continue on our way, and come to this viewpoint area, and I finally agree to follow her down a strange side-trail just to appease her. The whole time, I am thinking "WOW this would have been a great spot for Ben to propose, I'm gonna send him a video about how great this would have been." (In a kind, teasing not-too-mean manner). We come to the cliff, and some guy is having a sad, solo picnic. I first notice his shoes. Ben has these custom designed chaco's (long story), and this guy has the same ones. How strange, I think, trying to figure out how I can take a photo to show Ben that some guy has his same custom, one-of-a-kind shoes. I then take in that this guy also owns the same blanket, and backpack, as Ben. I then take in this guy has the same face as Ben... I immediately start sobbing, and the whole proposal is underway. I also learn an important lesson about how good Ben (and my best friend Katherine) are at lying to me over multi-month periods... But all in the name of love.

Anna didn't feel it was right for Ben to have all the proposal fun, so she planned one too. The story through Ben's eyes: Anna and I had just recently finished a three day, 30 mile backpacking adventure in Olympic National Park. My heart was full after returning from the mountains, however my legs were still very sore from the hike. Anna then asks me if I want to hike Mt Ellinor in the next few days. Since moving to Seattle, I’ve dreamt of climbing this mountain; and when I say climb, I mean CLIMB. While it’s only 3 miles round trip, that includes 2,339 feet of elevation gain. But if your future wife asks you to climb a mountain with her, no matter what you say HECK YEAH! A month earlier in Rocky Mountain National Park I got us stuck in a torrential hail storm. The weather predicted a *very* small chance of rain after 2pm and surprise — a thunder/hail storm starts dumping on us at 11:30am! It was 75 degrees when we started without jackets (rookie mistake), and we got REALLY, REALLY cold. I took it upon myself to be EXTRA prepared for the next hikes we'd do. Checking the weather, I see Mt Ellinor has a chance of thunderstorms the next day. I am freaking out while Anna is as cool as a cucumber about it. Did she just forget about getting caught in a hail storm? We leave for Ellinor, Anna driving, and she asks me to get her sunglasses from the glove box. When I open it there’s a card that says "The weather on Ellinor is crappy, maybe you should check out the weather at Rainier :)". Mt Rainier is THE BEST! Any day when "the mountain is out" is a wonderful day. I'm much more of a hilarious story teller than a poet but the most succinct way I can explain my feelings toward Rainier is exhilarating bliss. So when your future wife asks you to go to Mt Rainier, all you can say is HECK YEAH! We get to Rainier and Anna has a campsite for us. Mt Rainier is proudly radiating her beauty and we have the best time eating sour gummy worms and roasting weenies on the fire. Anna says she was only able to get us one night at that campsite and we'll be at a different campsite the next day. So we get up early, re-pack the car, and fill our packs with lots of snacks. When we start hiking there's not a cloud to be seen in any direction. 30 minutes later, there’s cloud cover so thick we can't even see the mountain that rises another 9,000 feet above, even though we’re already at 5,000 ft. elevation. We finish our hike with barely any mountain views but many marmot sightings. After a healthy post-hike snack of Rainier® beer and ice cream Anna tells me, "Surprise! We're actually staying at the historic Paradise Lodge instead of camping.” What an amazing surprise and beautiful location! At this point, my dear reader, you must be thinking "Ben, you had to be at least somewhat suspicious that Anna was gonna propose during this fancy trip to your favorite place." Nope! It never crossed my mind; completely oblivious while having the time of my life. The next morning at sunrise Anna wakes me up and tells me the mountain is out with no clouds, and we should go hike a couple miles to get a better view. A very sleepy Ben grumbles a request for more sleep but Anna succeeds in getting me to wake up. I do a decent job of hiking at a good pace but Anna is just booking it up this hill like she is part mountain goat. Meanwhile I am lollygagging up the trail taking pictures of squirrels and smelling the wildflowers. As I come through a tree clearing I see that Anna is doing some sort of pilates leg stretching at a spot with a GORGEOUS backdrop of Mt Rainier and she waves to me. As I get closer I see that Anna is still lunging down on one leg. Is she trying to flex on me by doing stretches cause she got bored waiting for me? Then what she’s actually doing finally hits me. When my absolutely amazing, badass, captivating, beautiful partner is proposing on one knee in front of Rainier there is only one thing I could say... HECK YEAH!