Emilie and Chris George. Photography by Owen Jones.

It was 2006 when Emilie and Chris George first crossed paths at Freshman Center. They were officially together after Chris asked Emilie to their sophomore homecoming dance.

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During Chris’ soccer practices, he would catch Emilie running for track.

“In the petty little 10 seconds that she was running by while the soccer team was practicing, I would be waving at her and doing high school flirting, if you will,” he says.

After graduating from Lake Highlands High School in 2010, Chris headed to the University of Texas and Emilie the University of Arkansas — they were over 600 miles apart.

“We broke up for about a year and then decided that sucked,” Emilie says. “And there weren’t any bigger fish out there in the sea,” Chris responded.

Emilie and Chris were married in Downtown Dallas in 2015. The George’s bought a home in Lake Highlands two years ago.

“We’ve come back, and we never plan on leaving,” Emilie says.

They had their first child when the pandemic hit North Texas in March 2020.

“We kept the newspaper article from the day he was born. It’s titled ‘Dallas shuts down,’” Emilie says.

Lake Highlands has changed a lot since the couple graduated a decade ago. It is now a multifaceted neighborhood with shiny new restaurants and shopping centers. What remains is a sense of community and belonging.

“It is kind of fun being adults, owning our home and raising children here when we were said children not that long ago,” Emilie says. “We know our son’s going to go to school with all of the children of our close friends.”