6 Months and Our Love Story

Today is my 6 months wedding anniversary!  I have to say it's as good as I hoped and better than I dreamed.  I know, pretty sappy but I still feel so lucky and so in love.  I love the banter and teasing, the ease that we work together, the priority which give to the other and how well we communicate and laugh and enjoy each other.  For those of you new to my blog here is how we met, oops I just went looking for  that story and I guess I never posted it!  Sooooo, I'm going to give you a quick sweet and short version of our love story, just because it's such a great one.  Here goes:

Last January my roommate and I decided to go on a cruise.  A few other girls joined us and in early April we packed up the car and headed to San Diego.  A girl named Nikki (my roommates old friend) told us she had a friend in San Diego that we could stay at his house and her friend would drive us down to the port.  We got to this friend's house around 11pm and I was tired (my roommate and I had been crammed in the back half of a small car ALL day).  

We stayed up a while and Kolbe and I had a fun time chatting, the next morning he drove us down to the port.  After we loaded the ship Nikki turns to be and says, "soooo, what about Kolbe?"  and I laughed and said what about him? He lives in San Diego and I live in Utah."  I pretty much didn't worry about that after and I had the best time on the cruise and came back nice and tan and relaxed.  Kolbe picked us up from the ship and we went to In-N-Out for a quick lunch before Kolbe dropped me off at the airport (two of us were flying home).  While we ate lunch I was sort of flirting with him (hey, I was tan and feeling hot! and he will say I threw myself at him, but that is SO not true!).  He drops us off at the airport and unloads our luggage for us and I gave him a side hug and told him thanks for helping us out so much.

The next day I added him as a friend on Facebook and for the next few days every time I logged in he would start chatting with me.  I started thinking that this guy might be interested in me!  That was on a Friday and by Monday or Tuesday he would call me after work and we would talk for a few hours.  We decided that one of us should fly to the other one and see if there was anything to this thing we were doing, with our schedules we figured it would be 3 weeks before we could do it.  That Friday we were chatting online while we were both at work and I made some comment about how 2 more weeks felt like forever and joked that he should just fly out for this weekend.  He responded that the last flight out of San Diego was at 6:45. I said really and he told me if he left right then he could make the flight, he then told me he had to go so he could catch a flight!  I was so excited and a little apprehensive, I mean I had met this guy a week ago but still, he was flying out to spend the weekend with me, the whole weekend.  I hoped that we would have fun, cause it could be completely awkward and painful! At 8:30 I was at the Salt Lake City airport waiting to pick up this sort of stranger!

Our first weekend together, hiking the Wind Caves

I won't go into all the details of the weekend but we had a blast and when I drove him back to the airport I honestly had no idea what would happen but I knew that I wanted to have fun and enjoy the ride.  For my first trip to San Diego we had to wait 3 weeks.  I had signed up to run my first 5K and I couldn't miss it!  During this time Kolbe was really anxious to know where things were going.  He was ready to be exclusive but I was more cautious, not because I didn't know if I liked him but I just wanted to spend more time with him and make sure.  

My first visit out to San Diego, in the parking lot after a hike we had just finished

 My first trip out to San Diego was easy.  I could believe how easy and fun it was to be with this guy.  We went on a motorcycle ride and Kolbe told me if I wanted to commit he would buy me a motorcycle helmet for our next ride (he had an old helmet so I was safe).  I think I flew out on Thursday and on Saturday we spent the day at the beach and I told him that I liked him and I wanted to be exclusive and  see where it took us.  Later that day we went and ordered a motorcycle helmet!  The next 2 days were equally as fun.  We planned my next trip out to San Diego while I was there, it would be over Memorial day weekend!  When I got home I kind of freaked out about him really buying me that helmet.

On our first motorcycle ride

Memorial Day weekend was so much fun.  We drove up to LA and met Kolbe's sister and her husband, hiked, went on a motorcycle ride (with my new helmet), shopped for a sectional for Kolbe, cooked together and just kept falling in love.  It was also the trip I told him I loved him, he was waiting for me to say it first, but he quickly said it in return.  From the beginning he always told me I had the gas pedal and he was just along for the ride.  We also joking started looking at wedding rings but there was also a seriousness behind it.  When I got home from that trip I actually told him not to order the ring yet cause I was freaking out.  He didn't listen.

I think we had gone ring shopping this trip out to San Diego, and of course we were on another hike!

 I want to clarify for a minute that during all my freaking out moments it never had anything to do with Kolbe.  It was about the idea of leaving my career, my house, my family- basically my whole life.  I never once had any doubts about this amazing guy, everything was falling right into place but getting use to the idea of changing everything in my life was a little overwhelming, but an idea that became more and more appealing!

A midnight motorcycle ride

 Kolbe came up for the 4th of July weekend (I secretly thought we would be getting engaged that weekend because I wouldn't be seeing him until the end of July for Kolbe's familys Bass Lake vacation)  he talked to my dad and asked for his blessing to marry his daughter.  I remember having a BBQ at my house with my whole family and there was this moment when my mom and sister and I were in the backyard chatting, my brothers were inside playing on the Wii and my dad and Kolbe were grilling together and chatting and laughing.  It's one of my favorite memory pictures, from the beginning he fit in with my family and it just felt so natural.  It felt like it was going to be FOREVER before I saw him again, but daily phone calls, online chats at work, and webcam dates kept us in constant contact, but it wasn't as good as being together.

 In the middle of July Kolbe's dad and step mom and little sister were going to be in Logan.  His little sister, Kelsey had planned some girl's retreat week at USU and they wanted to meet me.  So I showed up to their hotel room on a Sunday night and while I thought it was weird to meet them without Kolbe they were really nice and excited to meet me.  Before I left they said they would be make on Friday to pick up his sister and they wanted to take me out to dinner, I said sure and when Friday came they called and had me meet them at their hotel.  My mom dropped Mari, my little sister, off cause I wanted her to come and meet Kelsey's since they were close in age.  I knocked on their hotel door and Kolbe opened up the door!  He had flown into town to surprise me!  He told Mari to give us a minute and he shut the door, I figured he just wanted to kiss me some more or something without her there, but then he pulled out a little box and asked me to marry him! It was cool and awesome to Mari that she got to be the first person to know we were engaged.  I called my mom and had her come and meet us at the hotel so she could be the 2nd person.  We met up with Kolbe's parents for Kelsey's closing social thing and then we went to Cafe Rio and met up with most of my family for dinner and so everyone could meet.  It was a lot of fun having most of our family there to celebrate with us.  We spent the rest of the weekend getting some plans done and moving some things to my parents house cause we were getting married in 6 weeks!

Showing my dad my ring

The best part about taking Kolbe to the airport after this visit was we were engaged and I was going to see him in 4 days for 2 weeks!  We had his family vacation for a week and then I had to be in Las Vegas with my students for a fieldtrip to the World Design Market.

Hiking in Yosemite, bad photo but we wanted to get this huge waterfall that we had hiked up to in the picture

 We spent a week at Bass Lake which is in central California and then drove to Las Vegas for 4 very hot days.

In the Venetian

 Did some sightseeing, and some entertainment.  We also went to the Design Market, but mostly we were busy being engaged!

Obviously at the Blue Man Group show

So there you have it, how I met, fell in love with my husband.  For wedding ceremony photos go here and here for our wedding pictures.