The Story of Us

I have wanted to write down our story down for a while- it's fun to remember how it has all come to be. So, here is the very brief version:

Once upon a time...

Ryan and I met last July at the Draper Days Rodeo through some mutual friends. I had my eye on him the whole night, and even got brave enough to sit by him and flirt a little. But my flirting skills must have been rusty because nothing happened. A week later, we even went to a Bees game with the same group of people and still, he didn't seem interested. Ryan will tell you the story a little differently, but we'll leave that to another post. Anyway, months went by as I hoped I'd run into him again, or he would find me on Facebook, or get my number from one of his friends or something. But, that didn't happen.

The night we met back in July 2012

Then, one day out of the blue, he showed up in my singles ward. I went and said hi, and to my surprise, he remembered me. He had just bought a house in Riverton that happened to be within the boundaries of my singles ward. Lucky me. So, after a little coaxing, flirting and football talk at church, he finally asked me out. 

Our first date was December 27, 2012 (the day after my birthday). We went sledding with a little group of Ryan's friends. That night when he dropped me off, we sat in his car and talked for what seemed like hours. I couldn't fall asleep that night because I was so excited. We went to see Les Miserables the next day with Ryan's best friend and then we both left town for New Years. He asked me out again the next week and we were together pretty much every day from then on.

Ryan told me he loved me on April 10, 2013, the night I got back from a girl's trip to San Diego. I asked him what he was thinking at that moment and he said "That I'm madly in love". My first response was "with me?". Haha. Sure enough, it was with me- and I knew I was falling for him too.

Our little love story continued to get better and better. We both kept thinking it was too good to be true. We had an amazing relationship and had fallen in love so fast. Nervous and excited, we decided it was time to take the next step. Afterall, neither one of us are getting any younger. So, we went ring shopping in June. It was so surreal. I couldn't believe it was actually happening, but it was so much fun to finally feel like my dream was coming true. He had the ring for a couple of weeks before he proposed. I suspected he had it and was getting really anxious and excited for him to propose. Especially because I wouldn't make even one wedding plan until it was official and I wanted to get started.

Ryan and I were both off of work during his "birthday week" (birthday weeks are a new thing for him, I hope he's ready for mine coming up in December), so we planned to go to St. George with his family to celebrate the 4th of July. We headed out early on the morning of July 3rd and made it to St. George pretty early. We randomly decided to go hike the Zion Narrows that afternoon with the family. We hiked up a ways, and the rest of the family decided to start heading back, but Ryan asked if I wanted to keep hiking a little further. There was a little cove in the rock that I saw and wanted to get a picture in. We waded across the river while Ryan shuffled through his bag to find the camera. When I turned around, he was kneeling down in the water with a ring box in his hand. He asked me if I would make him the luckiest man in the world and marry him and I pulled him up before he could even finish his sentence and said YES! I was so excited that I didn't even give him a chance to open the ring box. He said, "do you want to see the ring"? Ha. At least he knows I wanted to marry him regardless of which ring he picked. There could have been a ring pop in there for all I knew. We enjoyed the rest of the week in St. George with the family. I remember feeling like I was on Cloud 9! Once we got home, reality hit and the wedding planning began.

My instagram pic right after we got engaged

We decided we wanted to get married in the Fall, "the sooner the better" was always Ryan's response when discussing dates. After talking about a few dates, we decided on September 26th. The (little less than) 3 months we were engaged flew by! We were SO busy planning the wedding and getting everything together that the summer was kind of put on the back burner. But it was totally worth it! The planning was a lot of fun, and I had so much help from my awesome Mom that it went really smoothly. We had such a beautiful wedding, it really turned out perfectly. And now, after 10 months of dating, we are married and so in love and happy. I couldn't have asked for a more amazing man, he's exactly what I needed.

My favorite pic from our wedding day

And they lived happily ever after...