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Down the street, a neighbor hangs holiday lights on his house in this gated community, likely unaware that a few doors away lives a starting NFL wide receiver and one of the best women's soccer players in the world.

To be fair, Michael Wilson and Sophia Smith just bought the house in May, and with Smith's schedule – both with the Portland Thorns of the NWSL and with the U.S. National Team, gold medalists in the recent Olympics – she is just now getting a chance to spend time at home.

"More of our relationship has been long distance than actually together," Smith said.

"We felt like the first two years we built a strong enough foundation that any distance or any time, we'd be fine. But, obviously, it's not ideal."

The couple has been together for six years already, almost immediately knowing what was to come once meeting as 18-year-old freshmen at Stanford. Wilson executed a memorable marriage proposal during the summer soon after buying the house.

And now the two were relishing Wilson's bye week, which happily coincided with the end of Smith's season with the Thorns. Never have a pair of 24-year-olds so celebrated the chance to go grocery shopping together.

Smith will be home for a couple of months after the Thorns' playoff loss, watching Wilson try to help his team reach the postseason. (In order to rest and recuperate, it was announced Smith was among a handful of USWNT stars who would not be on the roster for upcoming friendlies.)

The time is not a usual stretch for their relationship.

The two spend time together when they can, Smith flying down from Portland, Wilson flying to Oregon, or to USWNT games in Austin or San Jose. Sometimes, pure luck is involved, like when the Cardinals visited the Rams last season and the Thorns happened to stay at the same downtown Los Angeles hotel for a Sunday game.

The couple were able to go out for coffee Sunday morning, stealing what time they could.

"It always comes back to we're going to see it through regardless," Wilson said. "She is the most special person I've ever been around, and knowing we're together keeps me humble and grounded because I know I'll never find another person like her again."

Wilson was at the podium speaking to the media during training camp when he was asked how he and Smith help each other as professional athletes.

The second-year wideout paused, gathering his thoughts, and proceeded to deliver a two-minute soliloquy about his fiancée and how she inspires him.

"It reflects on me because we obviously all heard the saying, 'You are who you surround yourself with,'" Wilson said in part. "And you are most like the people that you hang out with on a day-to-day basis. And so, I feel like that is giving me confidence -- seeing my fiancée, girlfriend throughout the years, accomplish her goals. Because now it's like, well, if she can do it, then I can do it, too."

A smile creeps over Smith's face when the speech is brought up. She has seen it, of course, in part because it went viral on social media.

"That made me smile a lot," Smith said. "All my friends were like, 'I was like almost crying when I watched that video.' But that's just who Michael is. It gave people a chance to see that side of him."

Six years together and two professional athletic careers don't dovetail neatly into a fairytale. The maturity both hold – neither have been drinkers or partiers, and Smith said she's has always gravitated toward older friends while saying Wilson has an "old soul" – have anchored the relationship. But like any couple, work is involved.

For Wilson and Smith, the stress test came in 2023. Smith rode the whirlwind of a World Cup year as one of the best players on the team, not only dealing with the pressure of U.S. expectations but the weight of opportunity that provided wealth but also a lot of work.

Wilson, fighting through an injury-ravaged college career, was drafted in the third round and desperately wanted to turn his NFL life into something he couldn’t get to at Stanford.

"That year was rough all around," Smith said. "The World Cup was rough for obvious reasons. But it was rough for our relationship because everything changed really fast and we had to figure out how we were going to navigate it."

With tight end Zach Ertz a new teammate – and Ertz's wife, Julie, Smith's teammate on the USWNT – while the World Cup was going on during training camp, the soccer/Cardinals story was a natural. Except Wilson, while trying to support his girlfriend, was trying to carve out a role on Jonathan Gannon's first team.

"I felt like my identity was not tied completely to me being a Cardinal but me being in a relationship with her," said Wilson, who reached out to the team's social media team at one point to ask to refrain from posting about the U.S. team in order to forge his own path in Arizona.

Add in the U.S. getting knocked out of the tournament, together with the stress of Cardinals camp, "that was sort of an underlying big problem for us to grow through at the time."

Said Smith, "I feel like a lot of relationships would not have made it through something like that."

The two can smile about the time now, sitting in their new house, their wedding on the horizon, having negotiated tough times remarkably well for people so young.

Yet, as athletes, they understand each other. That has been as much of the foundation they have built as anything else.

The two approach games from opposite sides. Smith, Wilson said, plays better when "she is free and not super nervous." Smith said if her game is at 7 p.m., she'll go shopping during the day. Wilson knows he needs to be focused from the moment he gets up on a game day. Smith lamented that the couple's L.A. coffee date last season was shorter than it could've been because Wilson has to be on the earliest bus to the stadium.

"She can sort of freelance until an hour before her game and go out and score three goals," Wilson said. "My process, if I did that, I'd probably drop three balls."

Oil and water, it's not. To the contrary, each feels the other has helped them in their athletic careers learning from the other. Wilson, through Smith, has learned to relax – at least some – with more work-life balance. Wilson has taught Smith about the importance of details.

"His saying is how you do one thing is how you do everything," she said. "Which I'm starting to maybe believe."

They do deal with their games – and their partner's games – very differently. Wilson admittedly doesn't like watching soccer. He likes the women's game better because he knows so many players through Smith, but when she is playing, he literally watches her the whole time, even when she is just standing at midfield while the other team is attacking. If he is watching on TV and Smith is subbed out of the game, he turns it off.

Smith said she just recently has learned the game of football. But like many significant others, she watches Wilson through the prism of health. Win or lose, she just doesn't want him to get hurt.

Smith, the 2022 U.S. female soccer player of the year and three-goal scorer for the U.S. during their gold-medal run at the Olympics this summer, is excited for her new dog.

Wilson and Smith had talked for a while about getting a dog for their home, which remains half-empty as they work slowly to fill it with furniture. (With both in-season, deciding on the right look has been a slow process.) Wilson wanted a pit bull or a rottweiler. Smith vetoed those in part because it would be difficult with which to travel.

Wilson didn't want a small dog. So they batted possibilities back and forth until they decided on … a small dog. Picking up the mini dachshund was Smith's big event this week, although Wilson said he hoped to eventually add a second dog to the family – presumably one bigger.

That isn't all they have talked about adding to the family, either.

"I feel like, aside from soccer, that's what I feel is my calling, to be a mom," Smith said. "My career, it has to stop for a period of time when I am pregnant so that's not something we can just let happen at any moment.

"(But) we've been patient for a long time."