Wedding Plans

I should be doing homework, but I thought I'd write a quick update on our lives.

For the most part, we're just trying to stay happy being far apart and planning a wedding we both don't really know how to plan. More than once Daniel has had to deal with my "freak outs" and "stressful binges." He says it just makes him want to be with me even more, but I think in his head he's really thinking "Man, what am I getting myself into?" He is more than I could have ever asked for. He cares just enough about the wedding plans that he's helpful and not too much that it's hard to make decisions. I even flipped through a wedding dress catalog with him this last weekend to see what kind of dresses he liked for me. (Luckily, we have the same taste.) I think any boy who has that much patience is a keeper!

We're still trying to figure out housing in Provo after we get married. It's tricky when he lives down there because he can't be of much help to me with looking for a place. I just can't seem to find the time to go look with my full schedule of school, work, and helping my siblings out with babysitting and such. I'm trying to balance everything, but most of the time there are just things that get left out.

At least we have the Temple scheduled. That's about the only thing set in stone at the moment. Gotta love planning a wedding with such an indecisive Bride! Good thing we have a long engagement. I'll keep an updates on our plans.

How we met...

Our love story is beautiful, but quick. I think the most frequent question I've gotten is: "How did you meet?" So this post is for those of you who don't know how Daniel and I met.

A long time ago, I moved to St. George for the semester. A few weeks after I moved down there, my cousin, Mike (Who is an aspiring play write) asked me to be in a play he had written and that would be performed in October. I kinda laughed, but agreed to the absurd request to be in it. Sure enough, a couple of weeks before rehearsals started in September, I was debating about telling him I couldn't do it for some lame reasons, but mostly because I really knew I couldn't act. But I stuck through it and on September 9th, rehearsals began. The first rehearsal was at my Aunt's and as we sat around the table to do our first read through, I looked around at everyone at the table. I'd like to say that I saw Daniel, our eyes connected, and it was love at first sight but...it wasn't. I simply went to rehearsal, and came home. Didn't think anything of it. A couple of rehearsals later, more people were getting to know each other. I'd make casual conversation with everyone and actually started running with another guy in the play who was getting ready to go on a mission. (I thought "Well, this kid's safe to hang out with, he's younger than me.") I had just started to date someone up at BYU at this point, and wasn't interested at all in anyone else. But Daniel was easy to talk to, and through long rehearsals we found out we had a lot in common. We became really good friends. When I needed help with a dance number, I always asked for his help even though I felt bad for asking. (Little did I know, he was always hoping I'd ask for his help.) He told me later that he was always trying to find ways to talk to me, to help me out, and just to be close to me.

Here's a funny little side story. After a couple of rehearsals, I was in the market for a ukulele. I needed something to do with my free time after work. Since I didn't have any friends down there, I decided to pick up the ukulele and play like a Hawaiian Princess. (Wait, does Hawaii even have princesses? Oh well, it sounded cool.) So I went to Bert Murdock Music. I walked in, looked over at the cash register, and there was Daniel. I was like "Hey, that guy looks familiar." He noticed me at about the same time, and we both made the connection we were in the play together. He then helped me pick out "Jake," my wonderful ukulele. He was very patient with me as I took FOREVER to pick the right one. Thanks babe!

One of my favorite memories at rehearsals was towards the beginning when I was searching on my little lap top on the internet for songs to learn on the ukulele. I was laying on my stomach debating which ones to learn, when Daniel came and laid on his stomach next to me and suggested songs I should learn. (This is the first time we realized we had the same taste in music.) It was also the first time I really was like "Hey, this kid is pretty cool."

Daniel was always doing things to catch my attention at rehearsals, such as putting pizza boxes on his head, or jumping on a mini trampoline wearing a black Korean wig. I just thought the kid was hilarious. (And maybe a little obsessed with cars...) Daniel knew I had a boyfriend, but told me later he just couldn't stop pursuing me. He often got after Matt (Mike's younger brother, and my cousin) for not introducing him to me earlier. (Matt and Daniel were friends in high school while playing in a band together.) That's how it all began, really. We were in a play, we became good friends, and eventually fell in love.

Thank you to the Wiest family for encouraging Daniel from the very first rehearsal to go after me! I owe it to them. Love you guys!

So, that's pretty much how we met. Stay tuned for more fun stories!

Goodbyes

I hate them. In fact, when I have to say goodbye for any reason, I usually just ignore it by acting normal. Some might have a problem with that, but for me, that's how I deal with things. While it was a little sad to say goodbye to Amber Lyn and all the employees I love so much, my excitement for school overshadowed the sadness. I thought the hardest goodbye was going to be with Daniel, but I think we both took it really well. We've planned out the weekends we'll be traveling back and forth to see each other and now I feel like my whole life revolves around those few weekends. Gotta love the long distance love!

Before I left, Daniel stayed by my side helping me pack and keeping me company while I went through boxes of junk. I couldn't help but take pictures of him doing all sorts of stuff like...trying on my clothes. Which looks something like this:

Or this:

I have to admit, I think he can wear this jacket better than I can. Don't we look perfect together? I think he's wonderful for helping me through it all. I hid him under my bed when we were done so that he wouldn't have to drive to South Dakota this week for work. But he was found, and had to drive there anyway.

A couple of days before I left for school, we took a drive to Gunlock, and boy, was it gorgeous! I love St. George because it's not bitter cold and the scenery isn't covered in white and gray snow. Here's some pictures of our fun.

I love this next picture because it's totally a candid moment and a complete genuine smile from Daniel as he tried to remove the hair from my face. It's not a good picture of me, but I love it of him.

Here's to you and Rex, babe! I'll see you again in 2 weeks.

The Proposal

I thought the best way to start out this blog was to tell the story of how Dan proposed to me. But, that's not the beginning of our story. I'll back track, middle track, and speed to the present. Mostly this blog is so we can remember what happened and when because it all went so fast! So, let's begin.

A few weeks ago Dan and I went shopping for rings. I found a couple that I liked but wanted to show my mom what she thought because let's face it, guys don't care what ring you get. I needed another female opinion. So, the friday after Thanksgiving I took my mom to go see the ring I really wanted. She saw it and fell in love with it too. That settled that, and I knew it was definitely the ring for me. I texted Dan (He was in Arizona supposedly until Sunday evening celebrating Thanksgiving with his family) about the ring, the size I wanted, and even that is was on sale until Monday. Well, Dan called me on Monday afternoon and told me the ring was sold. He promised we would go ring shopping when we traveled up to Salt Lake for the Mormon Tabernacle Concert, but I was still devastated. I had found the ring I wanted, and it was gone. I didn't want to go looking for another one.

Now, we'll fast forward two weeks to December 11th. Dan had just finished classes and we prepared ourselves for the drive up to Salt Lake. The drive was beautiful, clear, and went by fast. I was not expecting a proposal at all because I thought he didn't have the ring. (The little liar.) We met up with my parents at PF Changs to eat some wonderful chinese food before the concert. But for some reason, Dan was acting weird. He wasn't talking, and he would periodically stare off into space. I was a little bit bugged because I thought something was bothering him that he wouldn't tell me about. We had planned this weekend to have fun and be with my family, so I couldn't understand what would be making him so quiet and contemplative. (Stupid girl, I had no clue what was going on in his head...) I tried to make jokes, tried to make him laugh, but it just wasn't having the same effect it usually did. I could not get him to relax. We had some time after dinner before the concert started, so we decided to walk around temple square to see the lights. Once again, Dan wouldn't talk to me and made sure I didn't get too close to him. (Ya, that's right. He didn't want me to feel the ring box in his pocket...gee!) Being the little sensitive girl I was, I started to feel a little frustrated. Here's some pictures I got off my mom's camera of Temple Square.

Doesn't my Dad look so happy?!

This one just cracks me up...

This is my favorite.

After walking around on Temple Square for awhile, we decided to head to the Conference Center. As we were going through the metal detectors, Dan set one of them off when he passed through. I on the other hand, went through just fine. I thought it was kinda weird he made the machine go off. We got separated since I went to go find my parents while he went through another metal detector. (I found out later that the metal detector went off because of the ring. He went over to one of the security guys and told him he had an engagement ring in his pocket. The guy made him take it out and show it. Luckily, I didn't really see that part. All I knew was that he was being held up.) So after Dan finally gets the all clear from security, we head to our seats. I could tell he was even more bugged than he was before. He claimed the metal detector went off because of his crappy CTR ring. I told him it wasn't a big deal and not to be so angry about having to go through a couple of times. He still seemed really bugged. (He thought I had seen the ring and blown the whole night.)

Halfway through the concert I think something snapped in both of us. We realized that we were both being dumb and started to relax. We even started to have a little laugh fest during the concert. (How embarrassing!) To this day I don't know what we were laughing about, but we couldn't stop laughing. After that, things got better. The concert finished and my parents decided to go home while Dan and I decided to walk around temple square some more. He, for some odd reason, wanted to go to the assembly building, but to our luck, it was closed. (By this point, I think Dan was ready just to give up.) Then he remembered something about a big Christmas tree in front of the Capitol building.

We drove up to the capitol only to find a normal house-sized tree with no "big" describing words about it. (Once again, Dan was just ready to give up. Poor guy.) He asked if we could walk around for a bit. We got out of the car, walked along a little trail to this monument thing and then Daniel said, "So I think I know why the metal detectors went off..." and proceeded to take a black box out of his pocket. At this point I knew EXACTLY what was going on. I started freaking out, and made my glasses fall from my face to the cement as I frantically tried to get my gloves off as he started to kneel down on one knee.

"Amie..." He started, but because my "freaking out" was so loud he decided to let me calm down for a minute before he finished with my full name and asked, "Will you marry me?" I squealed, got him off his knee and gave him a big hug, while calling him a son-of-a-gun (I should have censored my language...) for lying to me about not having the ring. (He actually got home from Arizona on Saturday, bought the ring, then lied to me about coming home on Sunday AND about the ring being sold the next day.) I said "Yes" and I made him put the beautiful sparkling ring on my hand right then and there. (I knew I loved that ring!!!) It was pretty fantastic. He made a phone call to his parents shortly after, and I told mine when we got back to my sisters. It's been heavenly being engaged ever since!

And that's the proposal story. :)