Proposal :)

Well, seeing as how its Friday night, Kevin's now at work (he works a night shift on weekend, 10pm to 6am blech.. but its a job right? :) ) and I'm putting off homework, I thought I'd update a little more here. We're both super busy but very happy and getting excited for the wedding. People ask me how he proposed so I give them the story, but thought I'd write it down with pictures anyway... :) When he proposed, Kevin and I had been long distance dating for about 6 months, texting, calling, chatting, etc etc etc and seeing each other at least once a month for a few days at a time, sometimes more sometimes less. When we hit the fall semester and neither one of us really knew when we'd see each other again. Kevin surprised me and flew in to Utah for my birthday (which was awesome!) and then he drove up for General Conference and after that we didn't think we'd see each other again til Christmas, schedules were just too tight. But, my good friend Shannon Ference is also from Southern California and I asked if she was planning on going home for Thanksgiving. We decided we'd road trip and split the cost, cheaper than plane tickets, so I decided to surprise Kevin back and not say anything about going to California (I called his mom and family to make sure it was ok). Nearly killed me not telling him.



Shannon and I made it to Barstow then split ways, Andrew and Wade picked me up in Barstow to help keep the secret and took me back to Midway City. We met up with the rest of the family and surprised Kevin at work, that was a lot of fun :). The rest of the weekend we had a wonderful Thanksgiving, some awesome Thanksgiving flag football, and a lot of fun spending time with each other. Saturday night he took me out to Chili's just the two of us and I had a blast laughing with him and chatting the whole time.



I had suggested earlier in the week that I wanted to go see the beach before I left, I love the beach, so after dinner was done he tells me we're meeting up with his family for frozen yogurt but we have a couple hours so why don't we head out to the beach? I said awesome, not suspecting a thing, so we head out to the beach next to his house. Its really nice, just the two of us on the beach at night so we start walking out away from the car just talking about everything. After a while we decided to head back, he told me it was almost time to meet his family for frozen yogurt, so we walk back toward the car. I was not paying attention at all, talking with him, watching the waves, and so I hadn't noticed a thing when he suddenly stopped walking. I turned to see what was wrong and see we had stopped right in front of a little table with candles, sparkling cider, little candies, and of course our waiter Andrew, Kevin's brother, all dressed up in a suit. I realized what was going on right then, I mean its not every day you get a table with sparkling cider out on the beach with candlelight. Drew seated us and put on some music, served the sparkling cider then headed back to the car for a bit...


I couldn't stop smiling. Kevin and I talked for a while, a long while, about how we felt and how much we cared for each other and wanted to spend the rest of our lives together. Then he got down on one knee and proposed, and I said yes of course :). Then he asked me to dance, some might say corny but I loved it. I later learned that Drew had the ring and was supposed to tape it to the bottom of Kevin's chair, but somehow didn't, so when Kevin sat down and didn't feel the ring box he almost had a heart attack. But, Drew tipped him off and dropped it in his lap when he was getting Kevin his cider :). I didn't notice a thing... too busy being happy :) I LOVE the ring he got for me, he picked it out himself a couple months before and didn't say a word to me. I love it
:)




We talked and laughed for a long time, being happy, then decided we'd probably better go meet up with Kevin's family and I wanted to call my mom, so we called Drew and he came back to see us. We took some pictures and Drew sent us away to go meet up with the family while he cleaned up. I called my mom first thing and told her the news, I was so excited I didn't even know what to say on the phone. Eventually it all came out, then we went and met up with Kevin's family and of course they were all in on it as well... :)





All in all I could not be happier. I love Kevin with all my heart, I love his family, and I am so excited to spend the rest of my life with him. Having him up here at BYU has been wonderful. I love seeing him every day and spending time with him every day. He helps me with so much, my work and wedding plans and school.. everything, and I try and return that as much as I can.


Also, thanks for helping out Drew :)

Well it's been a while and a lot has happened. Firstly and most importantly, Jen came down and surprised me for Thanksgiving, so I surprised her back by proposing!! And she said YES!!! So now we're engaged and happy as ever. I got into BYU and am currently working weekend nights at the Wilkinson Center, Jen is keeping herself VERY busy with her job as the cancer research secretary, especially with the Rex Lee Run coming up and she has to do A LOT for that. We took engagement pictures last week and they turned out great, well half of them (the Jen half :) ) I'll put more pics on here later

Since May

Jen and I have been dating now for a little over five months now, and things are wonderful! Even though we still live 700 miles away, we've been able to see each other about once a month since March which has been really nice. In March I came up for a friends wedding and we had a get together of a bunch of mission buddies and then went out to breakfast the next morning. In April, I came up for conference. Jen got us great tickets to the solemn assembly, it was awesome!! Then in May we decided we'd give the whole dating thing a try so while she was visiting her brother in St George and I was visiting my brother in Las Vegas, she drove down and we went on our first date, first we went bowling. And even though I fell on my face while bowling, she still went on to subway, and a movie afterwards.



In June, Jen actually came down to California to visit me. Way awesome weekend as well as a much needed respite from a stressful summer school class. We went up to Hollywood one day and visited the natural history museum and then went to the observatory and watched a movie there .
[Kevin wouldn't tell me where we were going so it was a fun surprise, and we definitely had fun taking silly pictures and talking about the exhibits, especially these two emus.. ]
The next day, we went to a place called Crystal cove and jumped off a rock out in the middle of the ocean way fun. [This place was amazing, you fell through the air for a long time before hitting the water it was so much fun.]
Sunday we went to church and my ward absolutely loved her (she was even recognized in Sacrament meeting). [I had the great privilege of seeing the world's greatest primary teacher in action, even when his class size was tripled because the other teacher was out of town that day, it didn't phase him at all :) ] She was also able to be there for my nephew, Jake's, first birthday. The next day I had class, we went out to dinner and then she caught her flight back.

In July we got to see each other a lot, well relatively a lot. My family was doing a family vacation up to Idaho and on the way we went to Lagoon and Jen met up with us there, she stayed and camped with the family for a few days. We had a blast!! Then my family and I went up to Ririe Idaho and stayed a few days there, then on the way back I met up with Jen and stayed at a friend's place in Provo for a night, Jen and I went on a hike, and then Jen and I drove down to Vegas to meet up with my family the next day. In Vegas we went to adventure dome at Circus Circus and to a buffet it was a great weekend.

[Kevin also drove up with a mutual mission friend the week after for a couple of weddings of friends of ours and he stayed in Provo again. We basically spent the whole weekend with each other again and had tons of fun meeting up with friends and dancing at the wedding reception :) I got to take him to my church on Sunday and random people kept coming up and saying how cute we were... lol. He also started teaching me a little sign language, I love it]
In August Jen and a few of her friends came down and stayed with us.
We met up at the beach on Saturday and then went to a party at her Uncle's AWESOME house, it was great fun. It was also the first time I met any of her family, and they were awesome. The next day she went to church with us, and to the temples and saw the Hollywood walk of fame, it was pretty sweet. Monday we went to Disneyland and had a blast. Then she left on Tuesday.












In September I flew up and surprised Jen for her birthday, we went bug collecting and had a wonderful although extremely short weekend. [Best birthday I've ever had, opening my front door and finding Kevin :). I also found out two important things about Kevin on our bug collecting date: he's a fearless bug hunter and a genius.. he stole my net from me and pronounced death on any bug that opposed him.. as for the genius part just ask him about getting me sunflowers :) ]
In October I went up with some friends for conference. It was great. An amazing conference, and amazing company :) We even got to see good old Stephen Peaden!!

As for now, I'm missing her like crazy, counting down the seconds (approximately) until I see my other half again, and trying to balance all the other less important things that make up my life while constantly thinking about her.