January 1st - The day Katie asked me to be her wife! We had a wild morning and afternoon that took some serious twists and turns. Regardless, we sat down on my couch while I, by coincidence, planned on putting on Lord of the Rings. After deep and emotional conversation, Katie said she wanted to marry me. We had already talked a little bit about getting married, until she said, "Okay there is a ring in my pocket and I'm too nervous to take it out!" I was overcome with the realization that this was for real, so I began to cry a little, happily say YES, and call my mom.
Katie didn't hear Daniel's response because she was so nervous her ears were ringing louder than the actual sound in the room.
One of our first dates was at Arlington Race Track. I taught Daniel how to bet on the ponies and he saw the competitive, degenerate gambler part of me very early in the relationship. He was, seemingly, unafraid and won on the first bet he placed. On the way there, and back, we used a Y-split adapter so we could listen to music together.
We went to a Drake themed roller rink night at the Chicago Athletic Association. It had sold out and Katie doesn't do well with "No's" so she contacted the event coordinator and got us tickets, anyway.
We skated to some bangers, because every Drake song is a banger, and neither of us fell down.
Years ago, Daniel went to Brookfield Zoo and did the penguin encounter. He became best friends with a penguin named Pepe and in 2018 they got to reunite. Pepe and Paparo embodied our personalities. One introverted, awkward, hug the wall at a social event but really wants to party penguin and one goofy, hug-giving, would be smiling all the time if he had a mouth penguin.
Daniel is the proud parent of a Humbolt penguin at Brookfield Zoo named "Divot"
After Thanksgiving we became very jealous of all the piercings Daniel's cousin had. We got back to Chicago and got our noses pierced before we went to see Bongripper. We witnessed and over exertion of force by security and, together, scolded some fascists and our car got towed.
It was totally rad.
We went to Saba for Valentine's Day dinner. We dressed up, overate on carbs, celebrated our moving in together and grieved for Daniel's beard.
Some of our favorite days together have been spent on a Lake Michigan beach. From lazy days in the sun in Chicago, a rewarding view after a hike through the Indiana Dunes or doing basically nothing in Michigan to celebrate Katie's 31st birthday.
Something we realized early on and connected over is our passion for music. Most of our dates are going to shows and splitting Buffalo wings before, if we're lucky. This photo booth strip is from when we saw Daughters, for the second time in 4 months. We decided we should take more photos of us doing things for this very website. So, here it is.
This picture shows zero of beautiful Sedona but we look cute so we added it anyway.
I took Katie on a short trip to Arizona to show her where I made all of my bad decisions growing up, and to meet some of the most important people in my life that decided to stick around. Turns out, we had a blast and she still loves me!!
Sedona is beautiful. We went in search of magnetic vortexes and a man sitting on a rock playing the pan flute told us "All of Sedona is a vortex, man." Whether the entire place is a vortex or not, this place is absolutely magical and we didn't have to fight any snakes.