We have employment!

Last night Stephen finally got a call (after waiting two day longer than he was expecting) from the job he applied for in St. George. And he got the job! That is such a relief, and we are incredibly excited. Now we just need to find a place to live. Stephen is going down there again this weekend to look, and I'm looking online and calling around to see what might be good for us. I'm actually really excited not to spend this winter in Provo. Not that I hate Provo winters, but it's nice to have a slightly warmer break from the norm. And I'm so excited to live close by Aunt Rae and Uncle Ted! Hopefully I'll be able to find a nanny job in St. George, or even find a daycare center. I might like them better in St. George than I did here.

Stephen will be here in 8 days. Just for the weekend, but it's enough to last us another couple of weeks. We are so blessed. Miracles keep happening for us, reminding us that even though lots of people think we're crazy to be getting married so fast and with virtually nothing, this is the right thing for us to do, and it is the right time as well. We've passed through some challenges already, and there are many more to come, but we'll be ok.

St. George and one month to go

So, as I'm typing, my wonderful fiance is on his way to St. George to interview for a job that he fully expects he will be offered today. How exciting is that? Not exactly what I was expecting, but I should probably be used to that by now, and if I'm not, I should get used to it. I really like St. George actually, and I'm excited about the prospect of not living in Happy Valley, even though lots of my friends are there. But we wouldn't be too far away. After his interview, Stephen has a few apartments he's going to check out. I hope this works out. And I hope it works out quickly. Obviously I'm very excited to get married in a month, but I'll feel much more comfortable knowing that my husband has a good steady full time job. With benefits. This is really exciting!

Our wedding is exactly one month from today. It seems like most of the big stuff is taken care of, and now I just have to make sure I don't forget any of the little things. I get to see Stephen in two weeks, because my awesome Uncle Kent is letting him use his frequent flier miles to fly out for the weekend when I go through the temple for the first time. Then we'll have to say goodbye again, but only for two weeks, and it will be the last time. We've already started getting wedding presents, which kind of surprised me. We're going to have a time fitting things into my car when we drive out west. But we'll make it. It will be quite an adventure, and I really can't wait to start!

36 days and counting!

I can't believe it's so close, and at the same time I can't wait. It's hard being 2000 miles from your fiance! I still wonder what in the world I was thinking, but I also know things would not have worked out the same way if I had stayed in Provo. The wedding is 36 days away, and if we're lucky we'll see each other in 33 days. It will probably be 34. Stephen still doesn't have a plane ticket. I don't think his parents do either. That's a little scary, but I have to let them deal with that.

Yesterday my dress arrived at the Bridal Boutique, a full 18 days before they told us it would come! That was a great relief. I went in to try it on, and it was quite a surreal experience. The dress is gorgeous. It better be, because it costs about a million dollars. But it's perfect for me. I'm still amazed that we found it here in Maryland. No pictures this time, you'll have to wait until the wedding :)

Wednesday we finally sent out the bulk of our announcements. I could not wait to get those out of the house. Most of you reading this will get one within the next day or two, and I'm so excited! There are a few that we're still trying to find addresses for, but most of them are out of my hands.

I've had no luck with finding a job. I've had 7 interviews, and none of them worked out. I even emailed my boss at the daycare center to see if she has anything for me, and she hasn't responded. Maybe it's just not meant to be. I have plenty to keep me busy at home, and I hope I can at least be useful. I'll get a job when I get to Utah, and everything will be fine. I sometimes have a hard time trusting that everything will be fine, but I'm doing all I can right now. Everything will be fine.

Wedding plans

Let it be known that planning a wedding is SO not my thing. Just watch, I'll have seven girls just because I said that. I was way excited to pick my dress and shoes and jewelry. I was even ok with picking announcements and cake. A lot of girls have their entire wedding planned when they are 14. I was not one of those girls. I didn't know what colors I wanted, I didn't know where I wanted to have a reception, I didn't know who all my bridesmaids would be, or what I wanted them to wear. I didn't have a ring picked out years in advance. I had never tried on a wedding dress in my life. Ok, that's a lie. I tried on my mom's dress, aunt kristi's dress, and aunt jill's dress before I was 10. But that is beside the point. I did at least go as far as to say where I wanted to get married (the Washington DC temple) and there was a certain day that was kind of sentimental for me (April 30). At one point I was kind of on track to get married on that day, which would have been cute, but it's so far away! Past all that though, I never imagined I would have to make so many little decisions about this one day, and I'm all too happy to pawn off the little details to other people. And I'm so, so glad that I'm home with my mom right now, because she is a much better party planner than I ever will be and I'm so happy to let her do it. I'm good at helping.

Today I will probably send out invitations. Well, half of them anyway. The other half are waiting until I know for sure when the open house in Utah will be. We were waiting for Rebecca's mission call. Our host for that open house has been out of town though, and Stephen hasn't been able to talk to him. So we wait.

In the meantime, enjoy a picture of my dress! It won't arrive at the store until October 5, at which point I have to get it hemmed and bustled, and have the sleeves extended a little. Cutting it close? Oh, yeah. But totally worth it.

Anyboy want to tell me how to put the pictures where I want them, and not at the top of my post? That would be great.

The exciting news never ends!

So as much as I contemplated staying in Provo for the summer (at which point I may very easily have decided to stay...) I have been so grateful to be home! There are so many exciting things going on, and I can't imagine missing it all. What on earth could be as exciting as being engaged, you ask? Well if you are asking, you haven't been to my house.

Today my sister Rebecca got her mission call the the Russia, Moscow mission! She leaves November 18th, which is 3 and a half weeks after my wedding. I can't remember what her mission presidents name is, except that some people called him Chaz in college. He sang with my parents in A Capella choir at BYU. How crazy is that? We're so excited for Rebecca, and glad that she gets to put her random semester of Russian at BYU to good use.

Two weeks ago my family gathered in the living room to open our very first big white envelope. This time it was for my brother, Jay. He was called to serve in the Philippines, Quezon City mission. He goes into the MTC on December 16th, so Rebecca will still be there when he arrives. They might actually leave at the same time if the training for the Tagolog language is only 8 weeks. Rebecca will be there for 12, unless they put her in the advenced class since she already knows a little. Both of them will miss Christmas this year, and Becca will miss Thanksgiving by about a week. I'm seriously amazed at the feeling in our home since Jay's call arrived. It's really something.

So, that's the excitement around here. Wedding plans are moving along nicely, Zac and Liz are back in school, and I had a job interview at Staples today. They should call me back tomorrow, and hopefully I'll have a job for the next 6 weeks. That will be a relief in some ways, even though there is still much I need to do as far as wedding plans go. So yeah, exciting times. Never a dull moment in our home!

Part IV - How to have a successful long distance relationship

An hour into my drive to Henderson, Stephen called and kept me awake until I got to Aunt Rae's house in St. George. Since then, we have talked on the phone every single day. Usually for a little more than an hour, sometimes for more like 3 hours. Dad says I used more than 3200 minutes on my phone in May, and about 3000 of them were talking to Stephen. Good thing I was one of his "top ten" on his phone plan, so we could talk for free. We talked about everything, swapping stories and really getting to know each other. At the beginning of June, he bought a plane ticket to come stay with my family the week of the 4th of July. We had talked quite a bit about getting married, but we weren't sure if we should get engaged already when he came to visit.

The week he was here was amazing. We went to DC, we went to see Up! with Nicole, we spend a couple of days at the beach, rode on Grandpa's boat, watched fireworks, caught fireflies, and lots of other fun things. It was perfect. On the fourth of July, and continuing on the morning of the fifth, Stephen talked to my dad and asked if he could have permission to marry me. I had warned my dad that this might happen, so he did at least have a heads up. That night, we drove down to the DC temple grounds and Stephen asked me to marry him, and I said yes! Actually, he also asked me that afternoon while we were taking a walk because he just didn't feel like waiting a few more hours. After he asked me, we were the last people on the temple grounds. In fact, we were totally locked in. I kind of panicked, but then I was ok. We called my dad and the police and both were on their way to see if they could help at all when the security guard FINALLY drove up behind us. It was pretty funny. He wanted to know what on earth we were doing there, so we told him, and he laughed and congratulated us and let us out. It was quite a night.

We didn't make it official until after Stephen was back home in Utah, because we didn't know when we could reasonably get married and I didn't have a ring. But the day after he went home we both felt like we needed to set a date and make it our goal. Mom had mentioned that it would be very sad indeed if Rebecca wasn't there to see me get married, so we decided it might be possible to get married before she goes on a mission. We decided on October 24th, because I don't want to get married on Halloween, and the planning began with a running start. I got to spend a week in Utah in August, and that's the last time that we'll likely have together until a few days before the wedding. It all sounds kind of insane because it's happened so fast, but we're so excited and we know we are doing the right thing.

So, that's the story you've all been waiting for. It's kind of the long short version, but it's still the short version, I promise. Hopefully at least a few people read it and enjoy it, because that was a lot of typing my friends. I'll try to keep you updated on the wedding plans.

part III

I think Stephen was kind of in shock when I told him I was leaving 4 months earlier than planned. What I didn't know was the he had kind of started to change his mind about me, and was waiting at this point for the opportune moment. He figured he had all summer. Now he had to decide again if he really wanted to date me now that I was leaving. I invited him to come see General Conference with me since I had tickets. I tried as hard as I could to make it not a date, but it still kind of felt like one. Anyone who saw us together that day could easily assume we were at least dating, even though we weren't even holding hands. He told me on the drive up that he was going to miss me, and I said the same, though I was pretty sure I meant it differently. If we hadn't had to give a ride home to two other girls, I think something might have happened on the way home. But it didn't.

That same week, I had a concert. At dinner group I was all dressed up for our dress rehearsal, and Stephen walked in and told me in front of everyone that I was gorgeous. Then he offered to drive me up to campus, since I was running late. Then he came and picked me up, and dropped off my friend, and we went to the grocery store together. This is all in my car. The next day I decided to invite him to the concert. Miraculously there were tickets left, and I got him a pretty good seat. Elder Oaks was sitting right behind him. After the concert I was on stage for a long time doing clean-up recordings, but when I finally made it upstairs, I found Stephen waiting for me. We walked to my car and he asked if he could buy me a frosty. I was thinking about the last time he bought me a frosty, but I agreed anyway. But then he asked if I wanted to go see a movie, and I started to get suspicious. There were no good movies, so he suggested we find a nice "spot" to eat our frosties. We ended up on a grassy hill by some apartments on Y mountain. We just sat there and talked like usual, and I started to think again that he really just brought me here to talk like regular friends and eat our frosties. And once again I was wrong. Eventually he said something about how he was really going to miss me, and he'd become rather attached to me lately. He knew it could be one of the stupidest things he'd ever done, but he thought maybe we should date for the next 2 weeks until I left. I surprised, and I don't even remember what I said. Or if I said anything. He put his arm around me and held my hand. It was really sweet. He also kissed me that night on the hill, before we went back to my apartment. I was still in my women's chorus outfit. Back at my apartment, we had about 20 minutes before curfew, so we sat on the couch and watched the end of a movie with my room mates. It was great to watch their faces when they noticed we were holding hands. When he left, they waited about 20 seconds to make sure he was out of earshot, and then started grilling me. I did not sleep much that night. Or at all really, during the next 2 weeks.

It was strange at first, trying to figure out what exactly it meant to be a girlfriend. I also had to figure out how to live through the last two days of school, when all my projects were due, and get through finals without failing miserably. Stephen tried hard to distract me as soon as he realized I would have to stay if I failed. We said "I love you" two days after we started dating. If I wasn't doing schoolwork that next week, I was with Stephen. Then my family came to town for graduation. They met him on graduation day, and he spent some time with all of us. My family left for Henderson on Saturday morning, and I stayed behind to go to dinner and one last Singers concert with Stephen. It was the best date ever. I'd been dreaming years of having a date to a singers concert.

I had to drive to Henderson the next morning, but once again I did not get much sleep because I had to finish my check out cleaning and last minute packing. Before 8am, Stephen was at my door and he packed the rest of my stuff into the car. I was not ready. When we finally walked downstairs, it took at least 20 minutes to say goodbye. I cried. It was hard, because I had no idea what was going to happen to us. Moving back to Provo was not in my plans...

The story you've all been waiting for: Part II

So where I left off yesterday I was relieved the Stephen knew for sure that I liked him, but also scared to death because I really had no idea how he felt about that. I knew he liked me, but not that way. I didn't really know what to do at this point. I tried to act normal around him, like nothing happened, but it didn't work. I am naturally a quiet person, but I suddenly became very, very shy around him. I could hardly talk to him at all. I saw him at dinner group, and sat by him at church. We even went on a walk one night, but no matter how I tried I could NOT talk to him. It helped a little that I finally told my room mates what was going on. They hadn't been very perceptive, and were completely surprised when I told them I liked Stephen.

It was two weeks before he finally asked me on an actual date. By that time I was quite certain that he was only taking me on a date because he said he would, and not because he wanted to. The day of the date I was really frustrated and worried, because at 7:30pm I still hadn't heard from him about when we were going or what we were doing. He finally showed up at 8:30, and I tried not to show how angry I was. Apparently he knew he was in trouble though, and asked my room mates how bad it was when I went to get my coat. They only said that he better make it up to me. It should have been a really fun date. We went down to Center Street and walked around taking some really cool pictures. He tried to teach me how to use his awesome camera. I know he tried to make sure I would have a good time, but I felt like he didn't really want to be there. Therefore, I was still unable to talk to him freely, because as much as I tried not to be, I was hurt and angry. He took me to get some ice cream and we went back to my apartment to eat it, but the date ended early when someone called him to give them a blessing.

Two days later I had to teach the Relationships class for sunday school, and I was dreading it. He knew that, and he came to the class. There were only 10 people. I wished he hadn't come. To this day I don't know what possessed him to do such a thing. The lesson turned out fine, thanks to a talk by Elder Holland. Later that night, Stephen came over to talk to me, and I thought at first that was a good sign. I was wrong. He let me know that he thought I was too quiet for him, and it would be best for us to just be friends. He was right at the time, but I was still hurt. And yet, it was exactly what I needed. I needed to know where I stood. As soon as he said it, everything went back to normal. We were friends again. I could talk to him just as easily as before. It was almost as if I said to myself, "I'll show you just how good of a friend I am." And I did. And when he said we should be friends no matter what, he meant it. We were great friends that month.

Towards the end of March, Stephen started saying things to me that were really stupid to say to a girl he didn't want to date. Things like, "we look really good together" after we had our picture taken together at a stake activity. One night I had to walk to my sister's apartment late to get the car, and I asked him to walk with me. It was snowing really hard, which I didn't know when I asked him. That was such a fun walk! And there was no way he could complain about my being too quiet. When I dropped him off, he got out of the car, then turned back and said, "The man who marries you is going to be the luckiest guy on earth." I should have told him to get back in the car so I could yell at him. I knew he meant it as a genuine compliment from a friend, but when a guy says that he usually means, "but it's not going to be me." The next day was April 1st, and I had a huge meltdown and decided I was leaving Provo forever...