Our Story: Part III

The week of the seminary morningside Christmas performances ended and his birthday was the next day, Saturday, December 9th. A bunch of people from the singles ward went to see Vertical Limit on Friday night, with the invitation extended to him as well, but he went out with an old high school friend.

The next morning, quite early, several of us kidnapped him and took him to breakfast at Crazy Otto's. Apparently, he was forewarned, since he was sleeping on the couch in the living room in sweats. I later learned he doesn't usually sleep in sweats or other pajamas. Anyway, that's when things really started.

Waiting outside Crazy Otto's in Lancaster

Later that day was an activity for Institute: "How the Grinch Stole the Olympics". We did silly games, like a round robin of ping pong and an egg toss and a four-legged race, shown here. I thought I had a picture of the egg toss, but couldn't find it.

The four-legged race

At the end of the activity, he invited me to his house for a birthday dinner. I thought that maybe he was just inviting some friends, didn't realize it was only me and that it was a date until later.

And that was our first date--I went to his house for dinner for his birthday and met his mom, brother (and the brother's wife) and three sisters (his dad had already passed away a few years before, so I never got to meet him). After the steak dinner, we went to see the movie Remember the Titans. I'm amazed he asked me out again after I cried in that movie.

The next night, he came to my house for Sunday dinner. We then saw each other every day for one whole week until December 16th, which was when I left for the holidays to visit my family in Michigan. He called me in Michigan over the holidays, and on my birthday (December 21st). I came back to California on the 30th. He proposed to me on January 2nd.

Dinner at my apartment on Sunday

I called my parents to tell them, and my mom told me that my dad was out of town. She called back a few minutes later to tell me that he was renting a car (he was in San Francisco) and driving down to see me on Friday of that week. He came down, arriving late at night Friday, went out to breakfast with us on Saturday and then went back to San Fran.

Meeting my dad

During our engagement, which lasted about 5-1/2 months, we visited his family in San Diego and Orange County and my family in Northern California and Utah. He met my mom when she came out in February for wedding plans. He met two of my five brothers when we went up to Utah. He met another brother (my youngest) over Memorial Day weekend, when we went to Utah again and my parents were there, driving through on their move to Arizona from Michigan. He finally met my remaining two brothers and their wives on the day of our wedding.

Meeting two of my brothers in Utah, the one in the middle was a student at BYU, the one on the right a student at Utah State.
This picture was taken at my grandparents' home in Mt. Pleasant, Utah

For this challenge, I was supposed to remember something we were good at doing when we were dating and engaged that has sort of been lost over the years. I think being open in our communication was something we really had back then but something that we really need to work on now. So that will be my goal, to be a better communicator.