Once upon a time in a not so distant land and a not so distant time there lived a young lad. He was the oldest of six children who he may have bossed around from time to time. At the time this story starts this young man, who we shall call Caleb, begin to wander across the face of the earth searching for truth.

Now in a far away land there lived a young woman, Amy, the youngest of five children. If asked, her siblings will agree that she was utterly charming until she turned five and developed a temper.

When the turning of the planets brought our earth to midsummer the rising of the sun found these two humans on a farm in Idaho at a reading retreat called Hill Abbey. In between praying and reading and eating and sleeping Amy became intrigued by Caleb and she found an excuse to email him when she returned home.

This story would have been very short if that email had started a romantic relationship, but instead Caleb swore that he wasn't interested and Amy moved on (eventually).

For the next four years Caleb wandered the earth. visited monasteries, wrote music, and worked for a company that may or may not have had Mafia ties while Amy slaved away in college and did none of those things. They spoke of life and death, joy and sorrow, love and hatred, and were generally very good friends. And only friends.

Finally, in the middle of nowhere in a land called Indiana they spent the weekend together. It is difficult to say whether Caleb fell in love with Amy when she cooked dinner for him or when he rescued her cooking from disaster or when they stayed up late talking about everything under the moon, but when he returned to the land of the living he left his heart in Indiana. Or so he claimed in the acrostic he sent her.

For a few stressful days Amy debated ignoring Caleb, but the man wrote an awful lot of poems, and he was fairly good at writing poetry. And singing songs. And showing up for surprise dates. And cooking really good food.

One very long and full year later in that awkward season between Christmas and New Years Caleb cooked a very excellent dinner. There were beautiful orchids and wildflowers, a special playlist, pomegranate gin and tonics, and the best meat in the world: lamb chops. After dinner Caleb read all of his wonderful poems to Amy by candlelight. Starting with the acrostic that started it all and the poem he wrote for their first surprise date:

And ending with a question:

And after a poem like that, how could she say no? She even had a whole poem explaining why she said yes.

But unbeknownst to Caleb, Amy also had a ring hidden in the proposal room. And she had another poem of her own to read. I guess this couple likes writing poems, but hey, no one's perfect.

Thankfully, if surprisingly, he also said yes.

But as Lewis and Bilbo would say, this is only the first page of the first chapter of a great book which we have just begun. And we can only begin to imagine the joys and sorrows and cliffhangers and deeply satisfying resolutions ahead of us. And of course there will be poems and meals. Lots of them. And we hope to share them all with you