NORTH MUSKEGON, Mich. (WOOD) — The older you get, the more you tend to cherish each moment and the people you spend them with.

“Just enjoy each other so much that it just seems bred into us,” said 91-year-old Bill Hassinger as he sat next to 93-year-old Joanne Blakkan.

It was one year ago that Nexstar’s WOOD-TV first sat down with the Michigan couple and 2 1/2 years since the high school sweethearts reconnected after 73 years apart. The two still sit hand in hand and their hobbies haven’t changed much in the last year. 

“We still play cards a lot. We work jigsaw puzzles. We go for walks and go out for dinner, read. Just … it’s a good life right now,” Blakkan reflected.

They went from spending weekends together to hardly ever spending a day apart.

“I feel very comfortable with her. We’ve known each other for so long, even though we weren’t together, so I guess we know each other’s idiosyncrasies. It’s just been terrific,” Hassinger smiled. 

The pair are not letting their age stop them from making as many memories together as they can. 

“Last summer, we took a road trip through the Upper Peninsula and that was fun,” Blakkan recalled. 

“We took a trip to Hawaii last week,” Hassinger continued. “Place we were staying in was right on the water, and it couldn’t have been nicer. The view is terrific. We were on the fourth story, you see out over the ocean. Pathways there and every place you look is green and half the place you look at there’s water someplace for either wading or swimming and we did all that.”

“Pearl Harbor was quite an experience too, going out to the (USS) Arizona thinking that there were 900 and some souls down below yet,” Blakkan added. 

Neither has any complaints about the other. Well, maybe one.

“I’m not happy with his driving. He’s a former state trooper and he drives like one,” Blakkan laughed.

“My occupation, I guess, is bred into me, and I’ve had a little bit of trouble driving her away,” Hassinger joked. “I think she’s getting a little bit used to it, and I slowed down.”

Blakkan is also getting used to the ring on her left hand. 

“We got engaged on Christmas Eve,” Hassinger said.

“I didn’t want the traditional engagement ring with a big diamond. I wanted something different. So, we picked this one out, and it’s … I like it,” Blakkan said, showing off the ring with five small diamonds. 

Hassinger, who has a home in Manistee, Michigan, that he plans to sell in the spring, will officially move back to North Muskegon, Michigan, where he grew up.

“I got a major attraction here that’s calling me here, so it’ll be like moving any place, you know, everything’s new to me again, but I’m looking forward to it,” he said. 

The couple said they’re in no rush to walk down the aisle. 

“If and when we get married, it will be very small and intimate,” Blakkan said. 

But they recognize that the promise of a ring symbolizes their commitment and love for each other. 

“All the things that go along with making a marriage is just natural and it’s natural for the two of us,” Hassinger said. “Especially the fact that we were together as teenagers and had a good start there.”

In the meantime, they plan to continue relishing in each other.

“We thank God every day that at our age, we’re still up and around and navigating and having a good time,” said Blakkan. “It’s easy, right Bill?”

“Yes it is,” he answered.