Brinker and I have known each other for almost half our lives. We first met during our freshman year of high school at Kimball Union Academy, in Meriden, New Hampshire and have been together ever since.

We started off as friends. Brinker’s interest was in art, and mine in computers (and helping Brinker with her chemistry homework), but we always found time to hang out. Luckily I convinced Brinker to join the alpine ski team so that we could spend our winter afternoons together. One of the best decisions I've ever made.

High school years turned into college years. I went to RPI and Brinker to Wheaton. Three hundred miles apart, but our friendship and love endured.

Little did we know, the true test had not yet begun...

The summer after my junior year at RPI, I packed my bags and moved to California to work for an internet start-up, finishing my degree remotely. Brinker spent the summer working at a museum in New York City, and we both purchased many plane tickets. With a thirst for travel that could not be quenched sitting in a library reading books, wanderlust overtook her. She worked and researched in art museums stretching from Vienna to London, India to New Zealand. The telephone bills from those years attest to our ongoing, and deepening, commitment.

Through all the changes and all the travels, the snowed-in airports, cancelled flights, and Skype calls, we stuck together.

The Proposal

In the summer of 2010 Garret planned a camping trip for us at Point Reyes National Park, just north of San Francisco. “He seemed a little nervous,” I remember telling my mom later on a call home with the good news. And there was this little matter of a random sock in the backpack with a boxed-shaped object in it that he told me to "stay away from!" Thinking that perhaps stress from work had gotten the better of him, I shrugged it off and enjoyed a beautiful day hiking along the Pacific coast, unknowingly carrying the ring in my backpack for miles.

That evening Garret lit a campfire on the beach using only driftwood, as the park rules state. Unfortunately after weeks of previous campers, the only "driftwood" to be found was a 10 foot section of a washed up telephone pole, which resulted in an embarrassingly large (Garret says "awesome") fire for two. We watched the sun set over the water, poured wine, ate s’mores, and then Garret proposed.