Sara was looking for another simple high school job, and for whatever reason our local trampoline park, Jumpstreet, was the cool place to be in Grapevine-Colleyville. In the days of paper applications, she came by one day to drop off her forms and handed those in to a cute blonde working the front deck, Austin.

Austin was a mysterious sort of “bad boy,” and Sara was on her varsity drill team. We went to rival high schools - him at Grapevine and her at Colleyville Heritage - so it’s unsurprising that we hadn’t met yet, even though we grew up maybe 10 minutes from each other. You’d think this was an “opposites-attract” situation, but come to find out, we both spent most of our middle school weekends at the same skating rink, SkateTown. Maybe we weren't strangers after all, just two people whose lives had been brushing past each other until the timing was finally right.

It wasn’t until January of 2016 when Sara started working that a strong friendship started to form. We bonded over music, our families, what we dreamed the world would be like past high school. It felt like Sara was living out a John Green novel in real life and falling head over heels for her “very good friend.”

On June 15, 2016 we finally became “official” - just in time for our generation’s summer of love. We went to concerts, we explored North Texas together, and we got ready to embark on our senior year of high school together. We were so lucky to experience so many of life’s milestones together, going to our final homecoming together and ultimately prom and graduation.

In August 2017, Sara moved to Stillwater, OK to start her freshman year at Oklahoma State and our relationship faced its first real test: long distance. Rarely did a weekend go by without one of us driving to the other, and we spent probably every night on FaceTime.

One weekend when Sara visited home, we caught up with an old friend who happened to be fostering two kitties. Sara instantly fell in love with the older, brown cat, while Austin bonded with the younger, gray cat. A few days later, when Sara was back in Oklahoma and we were FaceTiming once again, Austin panned the camera down to his lap, where both those kitties now sat. We were (paw) parents! Austin let Sara name them both, and that’s when Zip and Zap both officially came into our lives.

Sara did not last long out-of-state. With a PhD in separation anxiety, she quickly planned her return to Texas by initiating a transfer to the University of North Texas in Denton. After being accepted into their journalism school and scoring a spot on the UNT Dance Team, we’d finally be reunited as Austin also enrolled to pursue computer science.

We spent the next three years in Denton together, learning the ins and outs of being a young adult in this new world. We studied together, we partied together, we supported each other through our classes, our organizations, and our jobs. We lived in some of the coolest places and got to experience it all by each other's side.

After we wrapped up school, we both wanted to save while we mapped out our next move as actual adults. Luckily, Sara’s mom, Melanie, was generous enough to let us shack up at her house, and we stayed there for almost three years while we saved for our own home. Imagine that: three humans, three cats, two dogs - all under one roof. Despite the literal zoo we were all living in, there was so much love and support in one house, and it will always be one of our favorite eras to look back on.

With years of saving underneath our belts, we purchased our first home in May of 2024 and spent the next several months DIY-ing alongside our friends and family. We finally moved in over Labor Day weekend and have since spent the past two years settling into our lives together. From the games we play, to the movies and TV shows we watch, to the meals we (Austin) cooks, and everything in between - we fall in love more and more every day. And in January of 2026, we got engaged surrounded by our friends and family in our hometown of Grapevine.

After 10 years together, through so many different versions of ourselves and our lives, there is nothing more special to us than our love. Meeting 10 years ago felt like meeting an old friend, and we never take for granted the deep connection that our souls have or the support we innately extend to one another. There is nothing more rewarding than embarking on this next journey of marriage together, to start our own family and to continue shaping our lives.

We feel incredibly lucky to be held by a love that stretches far beyond ourselves - through our family and friends, through the people who shaped us, and through the quiet forces that led us to each other. Thank you for celebrating the next chapter of a story that the universe seemed to be writing long before we ever knew it.