Life of Late in Pictures

I was going through the pictures on my SMART PHONE the other day and re-discovered the following pictures that tell the story of my life over the last 2 months:

This was from Stephen and my Aloha date night. We made smoothies :)

I obviously spent an exorbitant amount of money on decorations for said date night... 

This is called, my life before my smart phone. Aka, my life in the dark ages, when I either called my mom for directions at least once a week, or looked up directions on someone else's phone and then took a picture of it with my dumbphone. What a wretched existence it was. 

These are the churros that I made for an amazing Mexican (ish) Thanksgiving dinner. They turned out soooo good!

This is my student, J. He made himself into a cyborg one day for indoor recess. 

This is called, I cannot live in this frozen tundra wasteland any longer. Note the icicles on this sad, sad bicycle. That is NOT okay!

This is the "Be" Stephen and I worked on for the month of December. I was very proud of my chalk drawing and took a picture of it. I'm glad I did, because no sooner had I hung it up than Nicole backed into it and got it all over the back of her skirt. 

This is the date card I gave Stephen for our winter wonderland date night!

This was our Christmas tree this year. .........you can see why we needed a reminder to "be positive."

This is the date card I made for the present we gave to both of our parents - a date-in-a-box!  Stephen didn't know that the word "stay-cay" existed. I know I did not make it up. 

This is called, here we are at the airport and we are so excited to be up at 4:30 in the morning and about to be on our way from Indiana to Maryland!

This is the insane line for Southwest Airlines check-in. 

This is called, we did not make our plane. So we went to the Indiana Children's Museum instead! They have so many costumes you can dress up in, like these dinosaur ones. 

.....or these deep sea diver ones.....

or this turtle and butterfly option! I was thrilled. Stephen was a little embarrassed. But still a good sport!

Logan got tired. Stephen is so cute. 

Here was another embarrassing picture I asked Stephen to take. At the Indianapolis airport, there is a shop called "Forever, Heather" and I was not about to miss that golden opportunity! His hands are supposed to look like a heart. Because he hearts me. Forever. 

Good Morning, Your Dog Died.

Waking up on Christmas morning is like....well, like waking up on Christmas morning. You wake up suddenly, and the air feels fizzy, and you know that it's the beginning of the best day ever. {Or at least the best day that year...}

Waking up on the day after Christmas is like waking up the day after your dog died. And you wake up kind of slowly and then all day it kind of sinks in that your dog is never coming back, and you keep remembering your dog as you go about your day, and by the end of the day you just feel rumpled and depressed.

Christmas morning this year was just as fizzy as the Christmas mornings of other years. It started at about 8:00, when the little boys woke up.

{I wish I had pictures to share of that, but they are all in Indiana and I am not.}

Luckily, the day after Christmas this year didn't start until 11:30, and when I did wake up, it was to kisses and hugs, and when I got up after that, it was to spend an hour putting on Natalie's fancy makeup and curling my hairs with her fancy curling iron so that we could go and eat lunch at the cutest little fancy historic lunch / brunch / dessert place I have ever seen: L.S. Ayres' Tea Room.

 

 

L.S. Ayres used to be really hoppin and iconic of Indianapolis, but then Macey's bought it and shut down the restaurant, which was the L.S. Ayres Tearoom. Stephen's mom went a few times with her mom so it was a really fun memory for her, and the Indiana Museum reopened the tea room just for the month of Diciembre 2013, so all the girls got to go (me, Stephanie, Natalie, Diane, her sister Angie, and their mom, Stephen's grandma).

 

We had hot chocolate and yummy sammiches and salad and soup, and they checked our coats, and it was just really fun!  

 



You know what I really like? Whenever we go out, Diane says: "These are all my daughters," or, "Can you get a picture of me and my daughters?" I know I'm not really her daughter, but it is so sweet.

 

The plan for tonight was ice skating. But when we arrived, there was no ice on one rink, and the only sign of life was a hockey team practicing on the other rink and two very nice black guys walking around with a boombox ish thing and also wondering where the ice rink was.

 

So instead, we wandered around the square, which was all lit up for Christmas and was home to the biggest fake Christmas tree in the world.

 

This was their first date years (and years and years and years...jk...) ago!

This is a statue that somebody thought was a good idea, but the rest of the world is just confused by.

This is some guy.

This is either a nutcracker or a steadfast tin soldier.

This is where people used to ice skate, but now it's all dry and people can only dream of skating in such a perfect ambiance.

This is across the street from the real  L.S. Ayres. See that clock? That's how you know!

Not too shabby for the day after Christmas :)

Baby Jesus and a Shimp-Load of Presents

Christmas, at the Shimp home, is not just a one-day celebration. It is not even a two-day holiday.

It is a month-long festival, and when you cram all of that yuletide into the one week that your college kids are home, it becomes a week of dashing through the snow from mall to family party to classy Christmas event and back to the mall, at high speed and dragging along as many brothers and sisters as possible. Also, food.

This is us at the Scottish Rite Cathedral in Indianapolis. We watched the Nutcracker Ballet! Which is basically the music of my childhood, so I was in heaven the whole time. And Stephen liked it too.

We had a Christmas gift exchange for the kids on Christmas Eve. Stephen gave to Michael and Logan, and he told them he had gotten them a Hershey's bar. It was actually a rocket....that he ended up assembling on Christmas. 

Then we got our Christmas jammies!! And Stephen ruined some pictures. And so did Brandon. 

The whole family got Christmas jammies! I love this tradition!

My favorite decoration in the house was this ginormous ball of mistletoe. It is a very popular hangout with the newlywed couple and the engaged couple, and also the married-with-seven-kids couple. 

The girls and their Christmas jammies :) 

We like each other. 

 This is another tradition that they do - every year, someone hides the pickle ornament somewhere on the Christmas tree, while everyone else waits in a different room. Then the person who finds it gets a Christmas book that they read to the whole family, and they are the one who hides the pickle the next year.

...GUESS who found the pickle this year??

Well it was me :) I promise they didn't just let me win, either. I know because there were tears.

Then I read "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" in my best teacher voice and it was on to the next tradition of making gingerbread houses!

 This was not a "let's build our gingerbread houses and whoever has the most fun is the winner" kind of contest. Teams were picked out 2 weeks ago. Barricades were put up between competition sites so other teams couldn't look. And we were given a time limit of 18 minutes.

So it got a little intense and some feelings got a little hurt, but in the end, three works of art sat on the table, ready to be judged.

At some point in the middle of the night (or at 6:45 in them morning), Santa came and filled up the living room with gifts!

So that's how Christmas began up in here. More pictures to come of the rest of our break :) 

Just a Little Rain

Last Saturday, something very exciting happened for BYU. We won the football game! It was a pretty crazy game and lots of my friends posted all up on Facebook about how fun it was to be there, even though they got soaked. (It started raining during the game.)

And ALL I have to say to them is, my goodness, you do look wet, mind if I share my story now?

Because you see, Stephen and I really like going on hikes. Utah has some beautiful hikes, it's a fun way to be outdoorsy and in shape without going running, and it doesn't hurt that we got engaged on a hike, either. So when he asked me on Saturday afternoon if I wanted to go on a hike, I said yes. 

We were on our way to hike Squaw Peak when Julie called. Nicole's mission call had arrived! She would be opening it in 3 hours. 

"We're not afraid," we declared boldly. After all, the sun was shining. It was barely 75*, perfect weather for hiking, and we were two in-shape (ish) people who could certainly make it to the top of a mountain and back down in 2 1/2 hours. Armed with our phones and water bottles, we set off up the mountain. 

Our hikes typically go something like this: 

Phase 1 - Optimism in togetherness

Phase 2 - Optimism in individual hiking

Phase 3 - Pessimism in individual hiking

Phase 4 - Elation in reaching the top 

Phase 5 - Energy and renewed optimism in the downhill slope

Phase 6 - Self congratulations in our completion of the hike.

Allow me to offer a more detailed description of these phases, in terms of this particular hike.

PHASE ONE

We hike hand-in-hand. We are both chatty and smiley. We are enjoying nature. We are enjoying one another's company. It's so much fun! Hiking is so fun! Whoa endorphins! I feel excited, optimistic, and a little bit euphoric.

PHASE TWO

The hiking is still fun. I am still appreciating nature and enjoying myself. I am no longer enjoying Stephen's company, though, because he has decided to plow ahead. I sometimes catch a glimpse of his red shirt through the trees. Sometimes he pauses and waits for me to almost catch up before taking off again. I am okay with this. Britney Spears joins me on my own personal hike. 

PHASE THREE

"The hiking is still fun," I insist to myself as Selena Gomez starts to serenade me. "The hiking is still fun," Stephen insists to himself as he stops to wait for me again. I vaguely remember a time in this very same hike where I tried to keep up with him. It's a vague memory because at this point, I have decided that if Stephen is going to be 8 miles ahead of me, I might as well take a break whenever I feel like it. So I do. And since I don't love running up mountains, but I do love walking up mountains, the hike starts to really be enjoyable again. 

It was at this point in the hike when we made a new friend - a rattlesnake!

He rattled at us because we were on his turf. Then he slowly inched off the trail to let us pass. We slowly inched around him. Stephen asked if my phone had reception, so I called my dad to check that it did. My dad was barely able to hear me, but he did hear me tell him that we saw a rattlesnake and we were on a hike. I hung up, put my phone back in my pocket, and we continued on our merry way. 

PHASE FOUR

"It looks like it's going to rain," Stephen said, looking at the sky.

"Maybe we should head back?" I said. "We can't miss Nicole's mission call opening!"

"We'll be fine," Stephen said. "We're so close to the top. We seriously will be there in like another 4 minutes. And then it won't take long at all to get down." 

Famous last words, hissed our friend the rattlesnake. We didn't listen to him. We just kept going. 

Stephen was right; it really didn't take us long to get to the top. When you hike Squaw Peak, you climb up the mountain until you get to this meadow platform place, and then when you walk to the edge of the meadow, you get this awesome view, supposedly. 

I say supposedly because we actually didn't walk to the edge of the meadow and look out off of Squaw Peak and soak in the awesome view. Instead, we got to the meadow and were suddenly enveloped in a cloud.

The cloud swirled around us, spewing water on the meadow and picking up dead leaves to fling at us as we tried to take a picture of ourselves.

We took some pictures of the cloud, but I guess it was a little photo-shy, because instead of smiling for the picture, he started to rain. 

PHASE FIVE

We started down the mountain, hoping the trees would offer some cover, but they didn't. We were literally soaked in a matter of minutes. It was kind of like being at a water park, except you didn't dress for success, so you're wearing normal people clothes inside of a water park. Also, that's not a very good analogy, because water parks are typically pretty fun. And you are trying to get wet. And you on purpose did not bring your phone to any of the fun watery places. 

I think for this hike I really need to split Phase Five into some sub-phases. 

Phase 5A - Panic and adrenaline in running down the mountain

In which I was still trying not to get wet or muddy, and adrenaline was coursing through my veins, and I believed (erroneously) that the trees would provide some protection from the elements. 

Phase 5B - Anger at Stephen and sassiness in running down the mountain

In which I started to blame Stephen for this predicament, and he started laughing at me and apologizing, and I realized it was futile to try to not get wet, and I also realized that my phone was soaked and would probably be no help if either of us got struck by lightning or bitten by the rattlesnake from earlier or smashed by a falling tree, and I started sassing Stephen and this conversation happened:

 Him: Heather, I want to go ahead and apologize....

Me: Shut up. Don't talk to me.

Him: Huh?

Me: I'm s-so, m-mad at you right n-now.   

Was it really his fault? Let's be honest, no....but I was feeling a teeny bit sorry for myself and believed that I deserved to have someone to blame for the whole predicament. 

Phase 5C - The First Fall

I did not feel as enthusiastic as Stephen did about the battle we were fighting against the mud, wind, and rain. I didn't love that my socks were completely soaked. I wasn't thrilled that my shoes would probably never be the same. I was sad to see my phone looking like it took a dip in the Great Salt Lake. I dreaded looking in a mirror and seeing the mess that all of the rain had made of my face. 

Stephen, on the other hand, was as happy as a duck. He was a little nervous about the rattlesnake, and a little nervous about the possibility of electrocution, and also a little nervous about flash flooding. (He kept saying things like, "Heather, I don't want to rush you, but we kinda need to hurry it up because in weather like this there's danger of flash-flooding, and I really don't want us to get caught in a flash flood....") Other than that, though, he was loving the adventure and already planning how he would tell this story later on. 

But all of that enthusiasm evaporated pretty quickly when his feet slipped out from under him and he landed with a splat in the mud. "Okay. This isn't fun anymore," he said. Being the good wife that I am, I took a picture. 

Phase 5D - The Second Fall

I was definitely trying to be careful more than speedy in our descent - hence, the frequent (very kind) reminders from Stephen about flash floods. It's hard to be careful when you are essentially walking down a muddy slide, but I was grabbing onto trees and plants whenever possible to steady myself a little bit.

At one point, I was holding onto a tree with both hands and trying to step around it to avoid a huge mud puddle, when one of my feet slipped. In my head, I knew it was game over, but I couldn't go down without a fight! My hands clenched the tree trunk. My feet started running, trying to get a grip anywhere on the muddy bank. 

And then, I fell, still hanging onto the tree. My whole right side splooshed into some mud. My elbow smacked against the root of the traitorous tree I had thought would save me. 

Stephen ran up the trail and picked me up. "Are you okay?" he asked. His enthusiasm was back. Somehow, seeing someone else fall does that to you. It's okay. I understand. I felt the same way when he fell. 

I kind of wanted to cry as we stood there in the torrential downpour, and Stephen laughed and wiped my hands off, one finger at a time, on his shirt. But then I also kind of wanted to laugh. And I also wanted to take a picture. So I guess both of our enthusiasms were back, and we continued down the trail. 

Phase 5E - The Return of Enthusiasm and also some Apathy

In which we realized we were already muddy and drenched and we really didn't care about trying to stay clean or dry, and all we cared about was getting down off the mountain. 

Phase 5F -  The Last Leg

In which we were finally out of the woods - not out of the rain, but out of the woods, and walking on flat ground towards the parking lot, still getting pelted with rain. We saw an old man with an umbrella walking towards the mountain. I don't know why. I didn't ask. I hope we weren't the last people he would ever see in his life....

Phase 5G - The Drive Home

In which we tore up a cardboard box in the trunk of my car to put on the seats so we didn't ruin them, and also in which we realized that neither of our phones were working, and we had barely 15 minutes before Nicole opened her mission call. 

PHASE SIX

This is when we are usually congratulating ourselves heartily for a hike well done. This time, we were blaring the heat and discussing all the things we I wanted to be eating right then: a Krispy Kreme donut, hot chocolate, a funnel cake, Awful Waffle. I wanted everything. I was convinced that all of those things were essential to my happiness.

We didn't have time to stop by our house, so we just showed up at Kelly and Dahl's house. I'm sure they wondered why a homeless hag and her husband were knocking on their door, but when they recognized us, they let us in and gave us a towel to shiver in while Nicole continued on with her mission call opening. Yes. She had already started. I guess we all know where Stephen and I belong on the totem pole....

Anyway, Nicole is going to Everett, Washington! She will be fabulous. I can't wait for her to write home about all the Twihards she brings to the gospel :)

(Almost) In-and-(promptly back) out

Every day, on my way home from work, I get smacked in the face by the smell of this:

Hello California, thanks for the calories.

Uhhhh. But don't panic! I have developed several coping mechanisms, including:

- moving to the left lane so I can't turn into that place
- only buying a burger if I can buy it with cash
- and never buying fries
- eating a little snack before I leave school so I'm not so hungry on the drive home
- keeping the windows rolled up tight and trying not to inhale when I pass it
- although that never works, because the smell is very insistent
- reminding myself that I have a friend who works there, and it will be embarrassing if I go too often.

Usually, at least one of these coping mechanisms works and I make it home and it's fine. But sometimes, I'm driving home, and I forget to get in the left lane, and I smell that smell, and someone takes my steering wheel and forces me to turn in to that parking lot. And sometimes I really deserve it, and a hamburger is, after all, a good source of protein, and I mean really, $2.10 for a meal is not bad. So I forgive myself and move on and feel all happy.

Today I was feeling a little down-in-the-dumps as I was driving home, and even though I wasn't really all that hungry, I decided I needed to treat myself! And I thought, they have served hash browns in my school cafeteria for 2 days and I have wanted those little buggers both days, and I haven't gotten them, so I might as well get myself some fries from In-n-Out!

So I turned in. And that's where I saw her.

She was driving a green Jeep Cherokee. Her hairs were piled in a little nest on top of her head. Her husband sat in the passenger seat, and three tweenage kids sat in the back. Her arm flab sat happily on her rolled-down window.

The line for the drive-through was quite long, so it went out into the parking lot, and even though she was next in line, I didn't see her when I pulled up. Neither did the Toyota Corolla pulling up from the other side, so we both started edging up, trying to find a good spot to get in line. We saw each other. We both waved apologetically and stopped.

Only then did I notice the nest-haired Cherokee driver. She had already noticed me, of course, and was gesturing and talking angrily at her husband about the whole thing.

Even though she had chosen an absolutely asinine place to continue the line at the drive-thru, I acknowledged that she had been there first, and was before me in line. So I smiled and waved to let her know that I knew that she was before me in the line.

She nodded ferociously and pointed this way and that to clarify that I was darn right about that. A little piece of hair flipped out of her nest and fell down into her eyes. Her husband said something. She turned and snarled something at him.

She looked ridiculous. I gave her a huge smile and a thumbs-up to let her know we could still be friends.

She tried to give me a thumbs-up in return, but got a hand-twitch at the last second and her thumb didn't quite make it. Another finger subbed in.

And that's when I realized, I cannot eat here. I might turn into her. I cannot do that. I cannot be someone who gets mad in the drive-thru line of In-n-Out. I will not stand for it. I put Carbaby in reverse. I surrendered my spot in line. I got out while I still could.

This experience may be the most powerful coping mechanism yet.

First World Problems

So I have a lot to blog about, but HERE'S THE THING. I haven't because right now, I am trying to:

1. move schools (we're moving tomorrow for the last 3 weeks so my school can get central air conditioning)

2. get engagement pictures taken (check!)

3. get a job for next year (which involves scheduling interviews, writing emails to principals, calling on other contacts for help in getting a job, finding substitutes so I can go to interviews during the school day, etc.)

4. unpack all my stuff at my summer apartment (not trying too hard to do that one, I'll be honest)

5. pack all my stuff at school

6. plan a wedding (oh, mine)

7. figure out where I'm living next year (actually this is Stephen's job but sometimes when I'm stressed about a few things then I start looking for other things to stress about too)

8. get a dress to get married in (finally done with that one)

9. plan my summer

10. plan my fall

11. save money (and the only way I can think of to do that is to just not eat....)

Blablabla boring. All I'm saying is, I'm excited for the day when I can do the following with some degree of consistency without it turning into a freaking panty-tangling process and event:

- sleep

- make and eat dinner (yesterday's dinner was a string cheese and today's was half an apple because it just takes SO MUCH EFFORT to make food and my milk just expired so cereal is no longer an option)

- brush my teeth

- go running (I know. Who am I?? I don’t even know, but I actually really like going running now and I think about it and want to do it and I try to plan it in, and then I get home and the sun sets and the world gets dark and I get scared of getting raped, so I end up just turning on the music video for “Good Feeling” by Flo Rida and running in place in my room while that plays, and friends, that is not even the same thing as running outside, let me tell ya.)

- lay out (if the sun could set at 9:30, I'd be happy. I mean, really happy. I could get home from school at 7 and lay out until the sun set. But no, it sets at 7:10.

- see my friends. I miss them really bad. And I'm turning into a bad friend, like, I know I am. It's depressing that the only time I can ever see them is Monday nights for the Bachelorette. Speaking of which...

- watch the Bachelorette. I usually am so painstakingly devoted to this show, and I take notes and I know the men by name, and I look forward to it every week. And I just can't invest in it this season. It's way too much effort. And it's such a dumb thing and such a first-world problem, but it's my blog and I'll first-world-problem it up if I want to.

How it Started

I'll just address the elephant in the room right upfront: This is a long blog post. I put in some pictures, which I'm hoping will act as snacks in Sacrament Meeting and keep you entertained....mostly. Carry on!



Some might say that it all started with a note. But actually, it didn't. Actually, it all started with knock. And a handsome stranger asking if this was the apartment where our ward was having nice notes.

Some might say that it was the wrong apartment, and at the time, that's what I told him. But actually, it wasn't. Actually, it was the right apartment, and the right girl, and the right boy. I just didn't know it yet.

I didn't make a great first impression. As in, I asked him if he was weird and awkward in the first 3 minutes of knowing him, and he thought I was rude. [For the record, he was a teeny bit awkward, so it was a valid question.]

However, it wasn't such a bad impression that all hope was lost. He came over again, and I redeemed myself. And then, he came over again, and again, and then he kept coming over. And I didn't even mind.

October 9th was my birthday, and since the best friend advertised free food and birthday kisses in a painstakingly crafted mass txt, he was there.

Some might say that Stephen had nothing to do with building this cake. Those people would be right. He just put the candles on because I said we couldn't eat it until I had blown them out, and if we're being honest with ourselves, we might as well just admit that the cake was 90% of the reason why he was there.

I won't tell you what I wished for when I blew those candles out....but the weekend after my birthday, I found myself squashed up next to him on a couch in an apartment south of campus, watching a scary movie with some friends. And he held my hand.

He played it cool, but this is how he felt:

(Me, too.)

A week later, I got a mysterious nice note. It looked like this:

This is the note that some say it started with.

I searched the ward menu, and the only S.S. in our ward was Stephen Shimp. And I knew, grazie to my women's intuition, that Stephen had not written this nice note.

Even so, he did like my cute skirts. And we did go out sometime.

This is the night he wanted to take me on a date, but it was the ward Halloween party. So we just hung out there and took beautiful pictures like this one about it.

This is the night after the Halloween party, the other night he wanted to take me on a date. A Jew came to town and we had already planned on going to Cornbelly's with my roommates, so we just invited Stephen and his roommates along. They did things like taking pictures of us in the pumpkins and then offering to let us use them on our wedding announcements. I did things like pretending not to notice their comments....

This picture is not from a date either. It's just from Halloween day, when Stephen and I hung out for like the hundredth time. And for the first time, he caught a fish from the Raintree River. And also for the first time....something else happened :)

When we finally did go out sometime, it was to this place:

The Quarry

I had been rock climbing a few times, and even been on a few dates to this place. This date was the best of them all :)

This might be where my mom might say it all started. The day after he asked me on a date, I called my mom. 

"MOM," I said, "You'll never guess what happened to me."

"What!" she said, all excited already. 

"The cutest boy in the ward asked me on a date!" I said. "I think we're going this weekend!"

She cheered. She asked for his name. She facebook stalked him. She congratulated me.

That date was on November 3rd. And not to color myself psycho or anything, but in the interest of full disclosure I should probably share that when my sister asked me less than a month later if I liked him, I told her I kind of wanted to marry him. 

In December, we had all kinds of adventures.

December 1st found us ice-skating at the Gallivan Center....

 This conversation happened when we stepped out onto the ice:

Stephen: WHAT! Heather, you don't know how to ice-skate??
me: No, I do! I promise I do! I just....I forgot, but I'll remember in a second!
Stephen: Oh, no, no, Heather, noooo!
me: Stephen! It's fine, I'll remember! Just wait a minute!
Stephen: What are you doing? Heather, what??
me: I'm just skating! Hold on, just slow down for a second!

It was not my most graceful ice-skating debut, but as soon as I remembered what to do (after about 5 minutes of tremulously clinging to Stephen and insisting that I knew what I was doing), I actually did okay. 

Looking at the temple lights in SLC....

.....meeting some Anti-Mormons posing in awesome costumes for free pictures, forgive us for that brief affiliation.....

.....wandering the streets of SLC, looking for the car.....(Don't worry, it was parked at none of these hotels. We checked.) 

 

 

I love Christmastime. I love downtown Salt Lake City. And holding hands on the car ride back to Provo, once we finally found the car at 2 in the morning, I loved Stephen, too.

This one time, we made a bomb-amazing gingerbread house.

 Ingredients, if you're interested in replicating our fine work:

-Starbursts from my kids for Christmas
-Berry Colossal Crunch cereal for the roof
-fudge-striped cookies from a 100 calorie pack
-brownie bites, also from a 100 calorie pack
-Frosted Mini-Wheats cereal
-tootsie rolls from ???
-frosting from when my kids made gingerbread houses at school and the parent volunteers tried to throw away the frosting and well, I rescued it.
-graham crackers from a bonfire we attended in oh, October....

And then he went home to Indiana, and I went home to Maryland, and we skyped almost err day.

Even when I was back in Utah for New Years Eve and he was still in Indiana, and I should probably have been going to a party or something. We skyped then too.

When he managed to get his arse back in Utah, we had more adventures!

He taught me how to snowboard....

and one time, when we were snowboarding, he asked me to be his girlfriend!

I said no.

But then I said yes of course, so it was just a minor setback. Then we went home, made fajitas, called his parents, and - most importantly! - changed our facebook status (super-important, you guys. It is 2013)

I should note that, when we called his parents, his mom said I seemed really sweet :) ...........which she quickly followed up with an invitation to read the new For the Strength of Youth booklet. 

As boyfriend and girlfriend, we once optimistically went to Sundance to try to get into the Matthew Mc-con-a-hottie and Reese Witherespoon movie without previously buying tickets, and instead just eating at a cute Mexican restaurant when we found that there were no more tickets available.

We went to Fire and Ice at the Riverwoods. We missed the fireworks, and the snowboarding, and pretty much everything else, but we were in time for the ice sculptures!

....and in time to walk around and try on some really beautiful hats.

 Winter has never been my favorite season. As in, it has always been my worst-favorite season. But winter with Stephen is a nice season, because it involves fun things like snowboarding and yummy things like Little Caesar's pizza that I had to buy for my roommates and warm things like cuddling.

It was one night, later in the month of January, when Stephen said: "I don't want you to think I'm weird, but....do you ever think about, what it would be like if we were to like, get married?" 

I was so surprised that he said that, but to tell the truth, I did think about it. Pretty much err day.

All of a sudden, it was February, 

Jazz game!

 and then Valentines Day. 

Which was a perfect day with a perfect ending. The ending was a whisper that sounded like this:

him: Heather. 

me: Stephen. 

him: .....I love you. 

 

me: I love you, Stephen!

And with that, we started life with a new normal.

 

It was normal to go rock-climbing,

normal to go running,

normal to hike the Y (with one person riding piggy back at times),

normal to fall asleep on the apartment floor after working out.

It was normal to never have leftovers, because I had a Stephen instead. Normal to sit on his lap while he studied and I graded. Normal for him to come in and visit my class, when he had a chance. Normal for me to come and study with him in the library and go to classes with him when I was off-track, or to go to the UVU basketball games so he could get extra credit in his class. It was all just the best kind of normal I had ever lived!

So that's how I think it started. How THIS

happened, is a blog post for another day :)