Our Journey (so far) 💖

The beginning (3/11/23)

We officially started talking on March 11th!! Not a whole lot of craziness here just yet, but we had some pretty funny conversation..

First Date

We went on our first date on March 18th! We had a nice chat after getting some boba at Lee C's. We had a good time, and soon after went on many other fun dates (like our drawing adventure pictured below on April 1st)

Misc: funny photos

Also around this time I sent some funny photos (and you sent me some back) that I still think are pretty good!! Here are my favorites:

It's official!!!

Today was the day we made the leap into exclusivity!! Woohoo!! :)

Study adventures and lots of laughs

Throughout the end of April and into May, we did a blur of studying (bleh) and hanging out (yay!).

Trial by long distance!

We also had our first long distance "test" with your trip to DC! Wow this stuff still looks super complicated to me haha but you did great :) (and we crushed the long distance thing!)

Last big date before I fly to Cali!

We had one final big date before I flew to California for the summer (although I believe this was unintended as I got norovirus directly after this date and was sick for a week). We went to Hilldale for some burgers and had a good time walking around!

Norovirus disaster

OOPS!! this was a rough week to say the least but thanks for helping me through it!

Long-long Distance begins!!

And so begins the 3 month employment I had for the summer at Netflix.. We facetimed almost every night despite this and totally crushed it (even though Netflix and my classes were crushing me haha). I'm so grateful for your support and love throughout this time <3 and we made it through!!

Back in Town!!

I finally return to Madison! And we celebrate by having lots of quality time together :). We had fun facemask nights and a nice jovial walk to the nature preserve!

Hanging out, having fun

We spent a lot of quality time since fall semester was just kicking off! From having a throwback date at Memorial Union to just walking around campus, we had a lot of fun together!

Cool Cheese Board Date!!

This was one of my personal favs, but right before we celebrated our sixth-month anniversary we had an indoor picnic with a cheese board and it was so fun!

Sixth-month Anniversary!

Of course we had to celebrate big for our sixth month anniversary, and we did so by going to Cento! Wow this food was super good, we should go back sometime lol. I do remember the cocktails being kinda iffy though.. can't have it all!

Zoo adventure!!

Presumably after getting destroyed by classes for a week, we found our way to Henry Vilas Zoo and had a great time! We saw a lot of animals and had a lot of fun together - that polar bear was seriously so cool haha

We create surprisingly good new type of curry

Remember this dish?? This actually kinda hit the spot, I think we were really in our element here

Operating Systems kicks my butt

I spend the next few weeks in front of a computer trying to survive this class (and you were there for me the whole time, thank you <3)

Halloween Fun!!

We carved a cute little pumpkin for Halloween and had a lot of fun! We also went to a pretty chill party, but it was really good to just be back in the normal swing of things after a tough few weeks!

Thanksgiving break - back at home!

For the first time in a long time, I spent thanksgiving with my folks! Unfortunately that means we didn't get to see eachother physically :( but we still spent time together over Facetime!!

Oops!! Don't forget to turn your lights on!!

Good Cookin'

Another classic by us! This stuff was delicious and those cookies really hit the spot lol

Christmas Break

Sadly more of the same for Chirstmas break for us.. we still had some time to hang out but it was a bit of a bummer not to be able to see eachother in person. We still made the best of it though!

We're Back!

Happy New Year! And we're back in Madison! We started the New Year with a bang by going to Olive Garden and having a great time together! seriously why is their food so good?? I'm already craving this again lol

Lots of quality time :)

Since we had a few weeks before the next semester, we got to spend a lot of time together :). We had a lot of fun and I'm really grateful for this small window of fun we had!!

Return to Shake Shack!!

Nothing too crazy here (we went to Shake Shack) but geez these burgers were huge! We were both pretty stuffed after this lol

Happy Birthday Ben!

I still don't know why you got me this massive Lego set because I know the price tag 😭 but talk about the best birthday ever! You really made today special and I had a lot of fun :)

Date at Dotty's!

I guess Shake Shack wasn't enough for us because we went to Dotty's and had seriously the largest burgers of all time. But this was sooo good although I think we were both in a food coma afterwards!

Toe incident! Stay at home struggles

We had a bit of a scare when your toenail got ripped off.. but we still managed to have some fun by making sure you were all propped up and ordering some fun food to help mitigate the pain!

More fun cooking!!

This slow cooked stuff was seriously SO good.. I ate every last bite of this stuff lol

More goofing off!

By this time we have started to spend a ton of time in general together. I think this photo is a good summation of our time together - we have a lot of fun and goof off a lot!

Valentines Day Eve!

And of course, we went to OLIVA for Valentines Day (eve)! This was a good time even though I was a bit under the weather with the nerve damage and mono. You were a real trooper in helping me throughout the day though and I think we still had a good time! And of course, the real Valentine's day is yet to come :)..

Valentines Day!

Happy Valentines Day Jackie! I am so grateful for you and I'm so happy to be able to spend all this time (and this day) with you. I love you so much and I can't wait to see what the future holds for us <3! Hopefully this was a fun scrapbook of sorts for you to look back on our time together so far. I love you!

Schoolwork and hangin' out

After a few difficult schoolweeks and a very annoying medical terminology quiz and a fairly lengthy linear algebra cram session we had some time to chill out and enjoy life with eachother!

I got these weird tacos

Way too cheesy and not great. 3/10

Lots and lots of rest

Around this time you started developing some nasty mono symptoms so there was quite a bit of sleeping going on..oops 🤪 fortunately it didn't seem too bad? Definitely a few days of headaches and fatigue though

Anniversary!!!

One whole year! Holy cow!!! I can't believe it's been a whole year already! I'm so grateful for all the time we've spent together and I can't wait to see what the future holds for us. I love you so much Jackie ^_^. Also we had Cento which was the bomb as always, a classy place for a classy couple 😎

Baklava attempt (😱)

We created baklava! It took about two hours of hard work but it was worth it in the end. It was delicious and we had a lot of fun making it together. Maybe a bit heavy on the lemon lime stuff but still pretty darn good (and we prob used too much butter lol).

Sushi Muramoto and Spring Break!!!

This was so good that i just had to include it u know? Seriously what a deal for like 15 bucks or whatever. Pretty good sushi too but the coconut dish thing takes the cake. Anyways we had a pretty great spring break with plenty of time to chillax and enjoy eachother's company :)

BIRTHDAY GIRL!!

And now we're at today! Happy Birthday Jackie!! I hope you have a wonderful day and a wonderful year ahead. I'm so happy to be able to celebrate the big 22 with you! We had a wonderful time celebrating today (and the night before even) with a ton of pretty good food and a fun mall adventure. We also saw this cool bunny on the way to Olive Garden so that was a plus lol