It was Friday night in Isla Vista, California and we were just a few weeks into our freshman year. Erin was getting ready to walk home to the dorms after ordering a Freebirds™ burrito, when she spotted Trenton with one of their mutual friends. Now, if you know us you know our mutual love for football, so it's only fitting that our first words to each other were words of disgust towards each other's football teams, the Patriots and the Broncos. After the initial hiccup of hating each other's taste in football teams, we decided to walk home together. We stayed up all night playing cards and then walked to the beach to watch the sunrise together (aww how cute). Except our story didn't end there. The next time we crossed paths Erin was getting some cake and ice cream from the UCSB dining commons and saw Trenton in her peripheral vision. She got nervous and while trying to get the ice cream off the scooper, dropped her entire plate and the desserts fell to the floor. Mortified, she looked at Trenton and then made the *intelligent* decision to pick up the cake and ice cream with her bare hands. Trenton, with a line that has now become a classic, said: "Did you just palm that ice cream?" But then, without hesitating, proceeded to help Erin pick it up and take it to the trash. Afterwards, Erin ran home and called her parents to tell them how she embarrassed herself in front of the cute boy she had just met. She still remembers her dad's response of, "It will be a funny story to tell at your wedding." Erin laughed it off, but as they say, Dad's always know best. From that moment on, Erin knew that if Trenton still wanted to talk to her after "the incident" then she could always be herself in front of him. We have been inseparable ever since.

I don't know if there was ever a specific moment when I knew Trenton was the one, but I knew pretty early on in our relationship. However, one thing that sticks out is the first time Trenton and I took the train to his hometown of Morgan Hill together. Trenton spent the weekend letting me be a tourist - we traveled to the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, shopped at the Gilroy Outlets and spent time with his family. Late one night during that weekend, we began talking about the kind of house we wanted, how many kids we wanted to have, and everything else in between. For Trenton and I, we just skipped right past if we wanted to marry each other and jumped to the future we wanted to build together, because the former was never even a question. We have always known that we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together.

There is not one single moment I can point to when I knew Erin was the one. Rather, it is the combination of all the little moments we cherish together and the small things she does every day that make me happy. Erin might deny it, but I know she secretly roots for the Patriots with me because she wants to see me excited. I treasure the small walks we used to take around campus during our freshman year, when we were getting to know each other. I always look forward to the nights we stay up late and play games or watch Supernatural together. I value Erin’s love for family and her desire to gift experiences rather than material things. I love when we talk about our future together and the family we will raise one day. Erin is and will always be, “The One”.