“I saw Heide across the room at a college party, tried to talk to her (she ignored me) and then spent the entire next evening trying to find out who she was so I could ask her out.”
— Austin
“I lost a bet with our friend Nick, and had to go on a blind date with this guy that everyone kept referring to as ‘Batman’ or ‘Gatsby’, I thought there was no way this would work and sure enough here we still are.”
— Heide
Seven and a half years of adventures: 2016-2024
Heide and Austin were 21 when they met in 2016 during their senior year of undergrad at University of Redlands and dated for eight months before graduating in spring of 2017. Austin took an amazing job in Newport Beach, California and Heide headed back to Oregon where she would be studying for her Masters Degree- and thus began a long 3.5 year long-distance relationship.
They traveled back and forth and tried to see each other once a month, and spent almost every evening on FaceTime catching up. This long distance was only supposed to last until Heide graduated from her Masters program in Spring of 2020, as she planned to take a job in Newport Beach- however, as we all know, a global pandemic had other plans for all of us. Heide graduated remotely over zoom, and Austin rented a car and drove the 17 hours up to Oregon after four months of not seeing each other to celebrate with family. Long distance would last eight more months (only seeing each other once during that period of time) until Heide was able to make the move down to California in February of 2021.
After seeing each other only twice during those twelve months, the 3.5 years of long distance finally came to an end and Heide and Austin moved in together down at the beach in Newport.
Heide and Austin still live in that same little beach house together, now with their little corgi Remus Lupin (Remy for short) and spend most evenings watching Harry Potter, plotting their next adventure, cooking together, and telling each other to “look at how cute Remy is” (even though he looks exactly the same as he did 30 seconds before).
Shortly after their 6-year anniversary, on a trip to Europe- Austin asked Heide to marry her at the Botanic Garden in Amsterdam. Heide, who was oblivious (and a little hangry) had zero idea what was about to happen, and Austin (after carrying the ring around for 5 days) finally got down on one knee while the church bells throughout the city chimed and asked the question- to an obvious YES and a lot of happy tears.
More than seven years have zoomed by, but the adventures are only just beginning!
Let’s take a little trip down memory lane
