It all started in the summer of 2011.

Both of our parents had moved away. One had even moved out of the country. We found ourselves in our early twenties, living on our own and figuring life out as we went. I (Abby) had a house to myself, and if you know anything about being in your early twenties with a house to yourself... you throw parties.

One June weekend, I had people over for a night of swimming and drinking (arguably not the best combination). Our friend Chris Nosek, who I had just started hanging out with and who had been good friends with Jourdan for years, asked if he could bring someone along. That someone was Jourdan, and I said, "Why not?"

Late that night, after delivering pizzas, Jourdan walked into my house carrying a case of beer and maybe a pizza. I honestly can't remember the pizza part. What I do remember is how easily everything clicked. A big group of us stayed up all night swimming, laughing, drinking, and just living in the moment.

At the end of the night, Jourdan left his case of beer at my house. The funny part was that I didn't even drink beer. Rum was more my thing. That didn't stop him from texting me to "make sure" I wasn't drinking it. Being the smooth talker he is, he suggested he come over so we could drink it together.

That case of beer sat there for weeks before I finally invited him over. By then we'd been talking quite a bit, and this time I know for sure he showed up with a pizza. We spent the night talking, laughing, and really getting to know each other.

At the time, Jourdan didn't even have electricity in his apartment. Like most people in their early twenties, we were both pretty broke. One day he mentioned needing to do laundry, so I told him to just bring it over. That night he showed up with a basket of dirty clothes... and sitting right on top was his PlayStation 3.

Well... the rest is history.

He never really left, and honestly, I couldn't be happier that he didn't.

A Little Intermission (For Tootsie & Diddy)

Before we continue our story, there are two very important members of our little family we have to talk about: Tootsie and Diddy.

Not long after Jourdan started staying at my house, I had a trip planned. At the time I had two rescue cats I'd taken in from outside, Tootsie and Diddy, and someone needed to watch them while I was gone. Jourdan stepped in without hesitation.

Looking back, I think that's really where our little family began.

Neither of us were cat people. We both grew up with dogs. Somehow these two completely changed that.

When we moved into our apartment, they came with us. I remember feeling guilty about taking them from a house to an apartment, but they adapted almost immediately. Before long, it felt just as much like their home as it did ours.

Jourdan and Diddy bonded almost instantly. Diddy became his little sidekick. Tootsie was much more reserved. She was every bit the stereotypical cat. Diddy, on the other hand, was basically a dog trapped in a cat's body. As different as they were, they were inseparable.

As they got older, we had our share of scares. We always thought Tootsie would be the first to go because she constantly seemed to have something wrong. Somehow she always bounced back. We used to joke that she didn't have nine lives. She had closer to twenty.

Then, in the summer of 2024, everything changed.

After a couple of back-to-back urinary infections, Diddy suddenly took a turn. At over fifteen years old, we knew what was probably coming, but knowing didn't make it any easier. Watching him decline so quickly was heartbreaking, and we eventually made the impossible decision to let him go.

Diddy was truly one of a kind. It's hard to explain, but he wasn't just my cat. He was our soul animal.

Coming home without him was one of the hardest things we've ever experienced. Strangely, after he was gone, something changed in Tootsie. She became much more affectionate, especially toward Jourdan. She spent more time with us, almost as if she knew there was a hole in the house and wanted to help fill it.

Even then, we thought our time with her was short. She had already outlived every expectation the vet had given us, so our only goal was keeping her comfortable. We were told maybe six months. Tootssie had other plans. She gave us another year and a half.

In March of 2026, we knew it was finally time when she suddenly took a turn one morning. Just like that, for the first time in our entire relationship, we found ourselves without a pet. Tootsie and Diddy were so much more than animals. They were our companions, our comfort, and a constant through so many years of growing up together. In a lot of ways, they were our first family. We'll carry them with us forever. Cheers to Tootsie and Diddy!

We were still young and trying to figure life out. While a lot of our friends were still living at home, we were already out on our own, learning as we went. I was working in a hospital taking care of new moms and babies, while Jourdan was playing in a band and living the late-night musician life. On paper, we couldn't have been more different. We've always joked that we're the definition of opposites attract. But the longer we were together, the more we realized we actually had a lot in common.

In the spring of 2013, we took the next big step and got our first place together. It was an apartment at the infamous Willow Lake Apartments, where it feels like just about everyone we know has lived at one point or another. We got lucky and ended up in one of the newer buildings with a double balcony overlooking the east branch of the DuPage River. I still remember how hard we worked just to come up with the deposit. Between the two of us, we had absolutely no credit, so we had to pay two months' rent upfront. None of that mattered once we got the keys. The first thing we did was walk into the empty apartment, sit down on the dining room floor, and just look at each other. We were so proud of ourselves. So excited. It finally felt like we were building something together.

By that point, staying at my house had become pretty difficult. For a while we didn't even have running water. We filled pots from a neighbor's hose just to get by and made regular trips to Chris Nosek's house to shower. Needless to say, finally having our own apartment felt like a dream. That apartment quickly became our safe place. It was where we hosted friends, celebrated birthdays, stayed up way too late watching movies, and made countless memories. Somewhere along the way it stopped feeling like just an apartment and started feeling like home.

We've talked for years about eventually leaving Willow Lake and buying a house. Now we're finally getting close to making that happen. As exciting as that is, I know it'll be hard to leave. So much of our story happened inside those walls. That's where we really grew up together.

Jourdan eventually found his passion working in landscaping, something he still talks about and genuinely misses. Later he decided to go back to school, earned his IT certification, and completely changed careers. Now he works in IT for a sister company of Toyota, and watching everything he's accomplished makes me incredibly proud.

As for me, I eventually left the hospital and joined a private OB/GYN practice. I'll always love hospital life, but I found a better balance there. Over the years I worked my way up to becoming the head clinical assistant.

Looking back now, it's honestly amazing to see how far we've come. Not just professionally, but as a couple. We've been through a lot together. Every challenge, every setback, every exciting moment... we've faced it side by side.

After almost twelve years together, something happened that I never expected. We got engaged!

As life became a little more comfortable, we started traveling more. Most of our trips were close to home, but this one was different. This was the first big vacation we planned ourselves and mostly paid for ourselves, aside from an incredibly generous hotel upgrade from my future mother-in-law after she found out what Jourdan had planned. We were headed back to one of our favorite places: California.

The main reason for the trip was AFI's Sing the Sorrow 20th Anniversary show at the Kia Forum. Jourdan had been looking forward to it forever. We built the rest of the trip around the concert, including a stop at The Comedy Store after we had recently discovered how much we loved live comedy. Of course, things didn't exactly go according to plan.

We landed in one of Southern California's rare rainstorms. Flights were delayed, rideshare pickup was a disaster, and we ended up sprinting uphill through the rain just to make it to the comedy show. We were completely soaked and out of breath, but somehow we made it. Looking back, it ended up being one of our favorite nights of the whole trip. The next day was just as eventful. We spent hours hunting down limited-edition merch, standing in long lines, making deals with strangers, and riding around with one very entertaining Uber driver who kept giving Jourdan a hard time about not proposing yet. If only he knew.

Then came the next day. The day I had absolutely no idea would change my life. That morning we wandered through Venice, walked the canals, spent time on the beach, and slowly made our way toward the Santa Monica Pier. I was completely in the moment, stopping every few minutes to look at something or take in the view. Meanwhile, Jourdan was quietly panicking the entire time. When we reached the end of the pier, he asked if we could take a picture together. Nothing seemed unusual. He set up the camera, had me face the ocean, and told me not to turn around until he was ready.

He started counting down.

Three...

Two...

One...

I turned around. There he was, down on one knee, holding the most beautiful ring I'd ever seen. For years we had both said we didn't need marriage to prove what we had. We were happy exactly as we were. So when I saw him kneeling there, I was completely shocked. What I didn't know was that while we were planning this vacation together, he had secretly been planning everything else. He spent months searching for the perfect ring, picked it out completely on his own, and somehow chose exactly what I would have wanted. He absolutely nailed it. The rest of the day felt like a blur. We called our families, shared the news with friends, and celebrated every chance we got. Then, as if the trip couldn't possibly get any better, we made a last-minute decision to spend our final day at Disneyland. It was my very first visit. It couldn't have been a more perfect ending to one of the best trips of our lives.

Now, here we are. Fifteen years later, getting ready to start our next chapter together.