Images: Tyler Rieth Photography

The days are blurring more than usual and I expect that to continue through the Holidays* and end of this year. We are most certainly staying home in DC for Thanksgiving and have opted to support a local restaurant, over attempting to cook an entire feast for two people. I don’t hate it, but I really, truly miss my immediate family right now. We couldn’t always be together on Thanksgiving day (especially with my younger sister usually working as a Nurse), but we most always got to see a good amount of both sides of our family, and it just hurts extra to think about. I knew this would be the case, but it doesn’t really make that hurt less.

I am trying instead to focus on getting a Christmas Tree early and decorating and actually starting to think about gift lists. I feel EXTREMELY behind on Xmas shopping already and my capacity for thinking of thoughtful/useful gifts for Andy and family was certainly swept away in the pandemic insanity.

Yet as always, we will continue our best to try and put positive, loving, SMILING content out there for you all. We certainly need it.

Connor and I met at our church’s young adult group. We started out as really good friends (although Connor liked me, but I was already in another relationship). Once I ended my relationship with the other guy, Connor and I got really close, so we decided to date about a year after meeting each other.

Connor and I have a very unique relationship. We are a couple that can truly be ourselves when we are together and with each other’s families. We love to just spend time together, whether it be watching a chick flick on a weekday night, or going out to a winery with family and friends. We also love to longboard together, and I’m teaching Connor to surf, so surfing is a big hobby for us. We lastly love to sit outside and enjoy the sunshine when it is hot and sunny. On any given afternoon in the summer you can typically find us lounging in my parents’ pool!

The proposal occurred on my family’s vacation trip to the Outer Banks. I always told Connor straight from the get go that I wanted to be proposed to on a beach at sunset, but I never knew “when” this would be. Connor told me that he had to finish up his semester at school the week we went down, so he had to show up a day later then everyone else. I believed him, and I prepared accordingly. On the night we arrived, while at dinner, my brother, Matt, mentioned to me that my girl cousins and I should get dressed for a girls photo shoot after dinner. I had no suspicions because this was a regular thing to do in my family with my cousins, but I was worried about whether or not to paint my nails for the photoshoot since I didn’t know if Connor was going to propose to me that week or not. My cousins just encouraged me to paint my nails now, “for the photoshoot, and just in case”. Sure enough , I was outside taking some candids with my brother before we took pictures with my cousin, and I turn around at one point to see Connor walking up the beach from behind the Black Pearl, which is an iconic house in Rodanthe, NC . Connor showed up a day earlier then I expected, and the only one that did not know it was me! I couldn’t stop screaming, “what are you doing here?” to him, until he finally had to tell me to be quiet because he had something to ask me. He then got down on one knee, and proposed at sunset, and of course I said yes. My cousins and brother were so happy for me. My brother took pictures while the proposal was occurring, and my parents, aunts, and uncles got to watch the proposal happen from across the street in the house that we stayed in. It couldn’t have been a more perfect day!

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