Story of Us

Our love story in a nutshell:

Two nerds find love, get a dog, move to Connecticut, and live happily ever after.

Backstory

Kate is in Minnesota, working remotely for Product Hunt.

Nick is in Boston, enrolled as a student at Babson.

Kate is on Twitter way too often and there’s a cute guy she keeps interacting with. His Twitter bio ends with “I love teaching things @babson”. Maybe he’s a young professor?
A digital friendship begins.
One day, there’s a new face at the weekly Product Hunt team meeting. The new intern, Nick!
Looks like he’s not teaching at Babson.
After working together for months, Kate leaves Product Hunt.
She gets an allergic reaction to her annual flu shot, and egged on by friends, she sends Nick a “deathbed confession” of her “massive crush”.
It takes him hours to respond.
When he does, they set a date for their first date: a multi-day ordeal during Nick’s finals week in Boston.

While on their second date in New York, they both accept full-time, in-person roles in San Francisco and decide to move out West.

Nick moves to Hayes Valley, Kate to Mission Bay.
They meet each other’s families (Kate meets Nick’s mom before they “go official”; Nick meets Kate’s entire extended family at a Merkatoris family wedding, which somehow doesn’t scare him off).
Other highlights include the now-infamous ski trip and Nick cutting down his first Christmas tree.
Oliver joins the family!
Other highlights include attending Christiane’s wedding (Nick’s cousin) and our trips to Carmel, LA, Seattle, and Green Bay.
Nick and Kate move in together, and COVID hits!
It’s a weird year, but somehow they fall deeper in love.

Nick and Kate decide it’s time to move out East. Using an extensive research process, they find a perfect home in Woodbury, CT.

The second cross-country move!
Nick doesn’t believe Kate when she says that volunteer fire departments are real. She is right, and he joins. This is the beginning of Nick’s love affair with firefighting.
Other highlights include a trip to Hawaii and hosting friends and family in their new home.
They spend lots of time in Connecticut! Kate finds several local apple orchards and spends the fall baking pies.
Other highlights include our trips to the Twin Cities and Portland!
Nick and Kate go out on a date night in the spring and Nick asks about her goals for the year. His list includes “get engaged” (aka what Kate now refers to as their “pre-engagement”).
Other highlights include another infamous trip, this one to NOLA (the weekend of the SVB bank run + collapse), a long weekend in Chicago with Kate’s parents, Nick’s impromptu decision to run a Ragnar in Boston in torrential rain, more time spent in Door County, NY, and LA, and our parents meeting.
Within the first 4 months of the year, Nick and Kate buy a house, move, Nick starts Rivet (his own tax business), Kate switches careers (to bookkeeping), and they get engaged!

Obviously, it hasn’t happened yet, but here’s to what it might hold.