And it all began here...

David and I first spoke at a YSA (Young Single Adults) activity in June, 2010. We were both on the Plano YSA committee, so we had seen each other many times before then. He remembers first being introduced to me, but I honestly couldn't tell him apart from the next guy until that night in June.

When we first talked, I had to ask him to remind me of his name at least twice. But despite my poor memory for his name, we really hit it off. He asked if I wanted to be on his team for Cranium, which 4 or so other people were playing. While everyone else was distracted by something else, we cheated and jumped our game piece ahead at least 10 spaces. --And no one noticed! We giggled and laughed, and eventually won. It was our little secret! He later told me that was the first moment when he decided that I was competely awesome. hehe :)

We talked the rest of the night. We talked about art, and how neither of us are huge sports fans (what a relief!), grad school, all the things suitors do that annoy me, and anything and everything else under the sun. All in all, it had to have been 3 or 4 hours. The best part was when another guy came and butted his way into our conversation. David and I were clearly making enough conversation without him, but for some reason he felt the need to join. Our third guest ended up talking about himself most of the time, and then proceeded to ask me out and ask for my number. Since David was the one I really wanted to have my phone number, I gave my number to the other guy and told David to write it down also. (I hope the third guy never reads this, and if he does, he doesn't remember this. haha)

At the time that I met David, he had LOTS of competition, and he knew it. Poor guy... I was so insanely busy between working two jobs and taking online classes that I hardly had enough time to sleep, let alone go on dates with all the guys that were chasing after me. Dating was more of a nuisance than a pleasure. We went on two dates, where I wasn't very nice to him, then he went home and tried to forget about me. (See how well that worked out?) I wrote him off as the same as every other guy, and convinced myself that he annoyed me beyond what I could tolerate. That is, until I found out that he was dating someone else. Oh man. You can ask my family. I had plenty to say on the matter. I couldn't quite figure out why it was such a big deal though. I didn't want him. He was obnoxious. He came back to Plano, and came to my sister's birthday party, and he was much cuter than I remembered. I was still really stressed though, so when he came to my ward the next week, I still found his quirks to be annoying, and I told him so. (Sorry, David!) We didn't talk for the next two months. I really had myself convinced that I never wanted to date him.

And then... there was another YSA activity. I had gotten over our little incident when he annoyed me, and life had calmed down a lot for me. I talked to him like nothing was different, and he responded, but not with a notable excitement that I was talking to him. It was kind of refreshing, actually. Later, we played a game of Apples to Apples. I was winning, so jokingly, I said something like, "I can't help that I'm awesome!" to which he replied "but you can help what you say..." completely seriously. --Sting! That moment was when I realized how much he actually cared and that I had hurt him. I said "I apologized about that" (I had texted him a few days after the incident, apologizing) and he said, "no, your phone apologized." --Sting again! Oh man. So I apologized again, in front of everyone else that was playing. We continued playing, as if nothing had happened. Then, the best part: my next hand had two cards that were extremely ironic: One said "Dating" and the other said "Fort Knox." (David's last name is Knox, for those of you that didn't connect that) So funny!

So later that night, I texted him to make sure that we were cool. But he never replied. I was so anxious that night, I could hardly sleep. I felt so bad thinking that I had hurt him. ( I even cried a little bit, thinking that I had completely sabotaged our friendship beyond repair.) I didn't think that so long afterwards he would still care enough to zing my like that-- twice! So after a long night of no reply text messages, I took matters into my own hands. I got dressed up all pretty and ready for church, and "accidentally" ran into him in the hallway at church and confronted him. Why didn't you reply? I apologized again, wasn't it good enough? He said that he just wanted an apology in person, not over a text message (even though I had totally apologized the night before to his face). So I apologized again, right there, and asked him to forgive me. He accepted my apology, and asked if I wanted to talk about it. I was still quite upset, and knew that I would cry if I tried to tell him all my feelings right there in the hallway, so I asked him to call me that night.

He called me right when he said he would, and I told him my side of the story, and he told me his, and we realized that a lot of what had gone wrong was just simple miscommunications. My busy schedule and other outside factors contributed as well. He said "ok, good. We can be friends again." I remember thinking, 'Really, that's all you want from me?' It shocked me. Men never said things like that to me. I highly value having a solid friendship with a man before dating them, but I never actually found someone who didn't try right away to date me and jump right into the romantic stuff. (It's all downhill from here!) So I said, "Sure, we can be friends again."

Later that week, I invited him to come with me to my friend's daughter's 2nd birthday party. I wanted to see him, but I didn't want the formality of a "date." I was so over dating. I even remember telling several people how I really did NOT want a boyfriend-- David being one of the people that I told that to. He respected that, and didn't seem (too) bothered by it. After the birthday party, he came shopping with Stephanie and I, which won him major points. I'm kind of a shopaholic, so the fact that he was willing to just casually shop with us was really awesome. Before the end of that day, he asked me to go to a movie with him for the next weekend.

We talked every day for at least an hour for the week between the birthday party and the movie. I remembered how much I loved talking to him, and how comfortable it was. I was glad to have an old friend back in my life. I decided partly through the week that if that was like being in a relationship would be like, that I could handle it. Friday night rolled around, and he asked me to be his girlfriend. Without hesitating, I just smiled and nodded yes. It was soooo wierd for me! He held my hand, and said sweet things to me... He was the first boyfriend that I had had in at least a year, and the first that I felt like had actually made an effort to get to know me BEFORE he decided he wanted me as a girlfriend. I was a little freaked out! Plus, I still found some of his quirks annoying. But, I knew he was an exceptional man, that he genuinely cared about me, and that I loved talking to him and being around him. The beginning was bumpy, to say the least. Between my insecurities about being in a relationship, and his insecurities about who knows what, it took a lot of talking to get to a point where we were both comfortable.But neither of us backed out, and he was so patient with me.

It didn't take long before I realized that I might want more from our relationship. And I knew David was thinking the same thing. He would say little things-- I didn't humor him at all, I would just ignore them and pretend like I didn't notice. And then he started fishing for responses from me. Before I knew it, was confessing his love for me. I felt the same way, even though we hadn't been officially dating for very long. It had been a long time coming. I liked him a lot from the get-go, I just wasn't ready to be in a relationship. But once the timing was better, things just fell into place for us. We very cryptically started to tip-toe around the idea of marriage. And then not-so-cryptically. On Halloween, he indirectly proposed to me by asking what I thought of the idea of us getting married. I told him that I wouldn't answer that question. Later that night, when we were saying goodbye on my doorstep, he tried asking indirectly again. I told him very stubbornly that there was only one way I'd answer that question. He said "But I don't have a ring..." and I said, "So?" So he started to bend down. Completely shocked, I look at him and say, "are you serious!?" and he got on one knee and asked me right there, "Will you marry me?" I just smiled and nodded, not even being able to verbalize a "yes." We hugged, and we kissed. And I said, "I can't believe you just asked me that!" and he said, "I can't believe you said yes!" And then he pinched me and said, "and no, you aren't dreaming" hehe



I got to pick out my ring, and he proposed again with it. Stephanie, my little sister, was in the next room when he proposed with the ring, and reports that I was squeeling and giggling. It was purely unintentional because I don't remember doing it :P