We met in the Fall of our Freshman year through mutual friends. We were friendly (and probably beer pong partners) but that was about it until the Sunday we came back to campus from Winter break our Sophomore year. We were invited over to James’ and Marcoux’s little Murphy bed apartment to celebrate the new semester. There was music and video games (and something about hot dogs?). Later in the evening, I was nestled into the couch and James came over, pulled my legs over his lap, and started talking… I remember that I wore sweatpants and that my hair was dirty- and there he still was. That’s what we did for a year-maybe? We would be together with friends and somewhere throughout the course of the night we would snuggle up on a chair. I remember saying once, “James, I’m glad we’re good enough friends that we can cuddle.” To which he replied, “-and we’re good at it too.” We started officially dating in 2011.

The One Where He Asks

On nice weekend days, we like to take the dogs for a walk to get coffee and then lounge on the grass at the museum down the street. There was a beautiful Saturday in October- sunny, warm, that ‘crisp’ of Fall- we took the dogs down to get coffee and then lounged on the lawn for awhile and then headed home for the Penn State game. The next day, we thought to pack some wine and cheese and crackers and repeat. The clouds rolled in. We were caught in the rain walking from the coffee shop to the museum. We decided to wait it out under some trees (we don’t decant chardonnay for nothing). After the rain cleared, we headed up to the top deck at the museum grounds and wiped down a table to eat our picnic. A few minutes later, he got down on one knee. We were wet but incredibly happy -and I said ‘yes’.