Our love story is a culmination of five years of triumphs, disappointments, laughs, tears, hugs, and phone calls. Our meeting was unassumingly uneventful, but something that began as simple chit chat to pass the time turned into deep conversations that spanned time into the early morning hours in the blink of an eye. Something made it so easy for us to talk about most things - maybe Michael's general guardedness was knocked down by Devon's general candid and straightforward nature. Two sides of a coin, we approached the world in almost completely opposite ways. When we met, we were young and stupid, but somehow me made it through undergrad together, reveled in the successes of job offers and graduate school placements and being able to continue our life together in a place of our own (rather than 90 minutes apart). That step solidified our bond, pushing us to grow together as a couple in order to survive in our new environment, away from everything we had grown to know. It was in that time that we had begun to rely on the others' support, and pushed each other to grow. Through the not-so-easy transition, Michael and Devon learned how they could best work together to overcome life's challenges. Michael realized that Devon was more than just his support system but also his best friend, and he wanted to spend the rest of his life by her side and began to plan his proposal. Once he received blessing from Devon's father, he took her on a symbolic scavenger hunt (as most of the places depicted in the hunt were back in their old towns) of all the places that meant something to their relationship. Started with an Applebee's where they shared their first meal as a couple, a lake where they often sat to feed bread to the ducks and enjoy the serenity of the quiet outdoors, a local billiard bar where symbolizing how Michael had visited her work on Friday nights, and the animal rescue where they met the other loves of their lives, their sibling cats Gatsby and Daisy. The final stop was a sunflower field that they discovered near their new place, where Michael proposed. She of course said yes, and that began the next journey of our life together.