On our two-year anniversary, Tyler surprised Savanah at the Manzano Open Space in Albuquerque. On a quiet lookout along a favorite hiking path, Tyler dropped to one knee and asked Savanah to marry him. Savanah, of course, said “Yes!”

We initially started scouting wedding venues in New Mexico and Colorado, but before we could make solid plans, an exciting adventure presented itself. When Tyler was invited to work at a summer camp in Dublin, New Hampshire, we decided to dive headfirst into the opportunity. With Savanah’s job transitioning to remote work, we packed up our lives into storage and headed East. We spent that summer in a tiny lakeside cabin called Chez Chenet, singing camp songs in the dining hall and hunting for fireflies.

As summer faded, and with the freedom to work from anywhere, a travel nursing contract took us to Kenosha, Wisconsin. This was our first taste of the Midwest; we spent the fall hunting for “sea glass” along the shores of Lake Michigan and searching for the best local cheese curds.

When winter arrived, another contract took us to the plains of Kansas City, Missouri. We traded cheese curds for world-class barbecue and felt right at home in the “Paris of the Plains.” Tyler extended his contract here through early June, and what started as a brief winter stop became the perfect destination to gather our families for our wedding and start our next chapter.