I was hanging out with my friend Emily this weekend and we got talking about all the fun times we both had with our husbands when we first met them and then started dating. I've never been much of a journal writer and my blog is pretty much the only journal I have, so I wanted to write down some of the details I remember from those times with Jared (and if you can't tell from the last few posts, I've been feeling all sentimental about stuff lately, I blame it on the move!).
Warning: Unless you really want to know the details of our dating life, I suggest you stop reading now, it will probably bore you to death! Now that you have been fairly warned. . .
- We met through his sister Mikell back in August 2008. Kell and I had become good friends the school year before and decided to move in together. I met Jared the weekend before school started when he was helping Kell move her stuff in. I thought he was really cute and nice but kind of shy. He totally thought I was hot! ;)
- I remember developing a crush on him one afternoon when he came over to talk to Mikell about something. I was in the living room playing guitar hero and he was sitting there waiting for Kell to come home. I wanted to start a conversation with him, but I was too nervous so instead, I asked him if he wanted to play guitar hero with me. Awesome story to tell our kids, "Your dad and I bonded for the first time over a video game!" Lol real romantic eh?? (What's pathetic about this is I even remember the shirt he was wearing haha. A long sleeve button down shirt with pearl snaps, he still has it!)
- After that I decided he was too shy and I was too nervous around him for anything to come of it, so when his roommate started showing interest in me, I decided to try that route instead. I went over to his apartment to see his roommate a few days later and Jared answered the door. His roommate was still on his way home from school so Jared and I ended up having a good conversation while I waited, which made me realize I was really more interested in him than his roommate.
- I got his number first, and invited him to come over to our apartment and watch a football game and eat pizza. . . He was out on a bike ride but said he would come after he got done. He showed up decked out in all of his biking gear and I thought he looked kinda weird haha
- One night we all watched I Am Legend at our apartment and I sat next to him on the couch. I am the worst person to watch scary movies with because I get freaked out really easily. During the movie I jumped pretty bad and grabbed his arm a few times . . . he argues that I did it on purpose, I argue that I was honestly just scared, which was the truth, I promise! :)
- A group of us went to the kite festival down in Spanish Fork one night. I strategically positioned myself to ride in the same car with him on the way to the festival and snagged the seat next to him on the way home. We watched a movie after that and this time I purposely pretended to fall asleep so I could lean my head on his shoulder. . . smooth is my middle name people lol!
- I knew he liked me when I got a random text from him saying that he had gotten a job he had applied for. I figured you don't just randomly tell people stuff you're excited about unless you like them.
- It took him the better part of 2 hours to get up enough guts to put his arm around me. He did the whole, "let me rest my arm on the top of the couch above you," move. His arm slowly started sliding down the couch closer to me until I finally leaned into him to force it the whole way down haha.
- We didn't go on our first date until after he had put his arm around me and held my hand. We went out to lunch at Tucanos, best restaurant ever, the end!
- We kissed for the first time after coming back from a play up in SLC. We parked the car in the parking garage underneath my apartment complex and then walked up the stairs and onto the grass in front. He gave me a hug and his heart was beating really fast. I thought it was kind of cute so I asked him if he was nervous. He said, and I quote, "No, I'm not nervous, it's because I just walked up those stairs!" I laughed and then we kissed, it was a good one. He texted me a few minutes after he left and said "Muy Bien!!" haha that's Jared for ya!
- I first realized I loved him at my friend's apartment. We were doing some math homework and I remember sitting on her bed and just randomly blurting out, "I'm in love with Jared, what the crap?!" Haha the look she gave me was priceless, who the heck realizes they love their boyfriend when doing math homework??
- We dropped the L-Bomb in Park City a few weeks after that. My family had come up to visit and they were staying in a sweet hotel room that had it's own hot tub, so we all decided to make good use of the thing. After everybody else got out, Jared and I stayed and kept talking. I can't remember what the conversation was about, but he eventually said, "I'm falling in love with you," and I said, "Good, cause I'm in love with you too." That's right, we said "I love you" for the first time in a hot tub, at a hotel in Park City. . . kind of a random circumstance but whatever works right?!
- We first brought up the idea of getting married a little while after that, thanks to my crazy sister. We were planning to go to STG for Thanksgiving and I was talking to Whit a few days before we left to go down and she was asking me if we had talked about marriage. I told her we hadn't yet and she said that I had better bring it up with him before we came down to STG or she would ask him about it at the dinner table on Thanksgiving. Yep, my sister is a little manipulator! :) Later that day Jared and I were driving to the grocery store and I brought up the conversation I had had with Whit and said something like:
Stace: My sister is kinda crazy, she threatened to ask you if we were going to get married at the dinner table on Thanksgiving! Haha isn't she ridiculous?!
Jared: Well that sounds like a good idea to me.
Stace: Us getting married??
Jared: Yeah
Stace: Okay sounds good
And that was that, haha, I still find it pretty dang hilarious that we decided we were going to get married on such a whim!
- He proposed inside of a cool gazeboo that is on campus at BYU. I had always wanted to get kissed in a gazeboo and had told him so when we were dating. He did a whole scavanger hunt/geo-caching thing that led us to the box the ring was in by the gazeboo. He said he promised he would always take care of me and asked me if I wanted to be his wife forever. I said yes and fulfilled my goal of getting kissed in a gazeboo! :)
We got married on May 30, 2009 and now almost three years later, here we are! If anybody made it through this post I am very impressed, you now probably know way more about Jared and I than you had ever wished to know haha!