Christmas break including becoming engaged

After finals Brian and I went home for Christmas break. But Brian had to go all the way back to Tennessee. Thank goodness I had bought a plane ticket to go visit him for a few days around New Years. But we still had a week and a half that we had to be apart. We did talk on the phone every day, and once I even lost my car in the mall parking lot because I was talking to Brian the whole time Nathan and I were there. I finally got off the phone and had to ask Nathan (who was 8) where the heck we were parked. Nathan and I did eventually find the car, but its not fun to look for it on a December night in Utah.

Then there was Christmas which I don't remember any specifics except I got my digital camera which has gotten tons of use since then, and Heather and I got a sweatshirt from our colleges. Aren't we cute.I also have to show you how amazing my sister Heather is. Every year she gets a lego set for Christmas, usually a star wars one and she makes the ship or whatever on Christmas afternoon. She is so talented at them, she even did one with only 1/2 the instruction manual. (The middle 1/2 was missing). Here is the fruit of her labor this year.Well after Christmas break I flew to Tennessee. Brian and his mom met me at the airport and shortly after we got back to their house Brian said he wanted to go on a walk at a nearby park. We started on the walk and Brian said he had a Christmas present for me. I mentioned that we were going to exchange Christmas presents later, partly because I had not brought mine along for him. He said that he wanted to give it to me now. I didn't expect a ring because we had talked about going to a jewelery store together later. So he pulls out a ring box and I start to get excited and he opens it and hands me a nice CTR ring. I was kind of annoyed because I was excited for a minute expecting to see an engagement ring in there and because it was too small for my finger. He had bought it based off of my roommate's finger size. We could were the same clothes but her fingers are more slender than mine. But I managed to cram in on my finger and we continued on our walk.

A few minutes later Brian got down on one knee and held up an engagement ring and asked me to marry him. I of course said yes and he put the ring on. (This ring did fit because he had been smart enough to get my finger sized right after finals while we were still in Utah, but after he had bought the CTR right). Then we continued on our walk laughing and pretty much just giddy.

While I was in Tennesse I had to meet all of Brian's family. It was like a wirlwind of meetings. Before this I had met his brother Jeremy and his sister Jesse. But I then got to meet Sarah and Mackenzie and his step-father Bob. Brian then took me up to his dad's house where I met his dad Allen, his wife Tina and their daughters Gracie and Lizzy.
I also got to meet some of Brian's friends. We went over to their apartment for New Years Eve and hung out. I was first introduced to Brian's favorite pasttime of Dungeons and Dragons, he even gave me a starter kit for Christmas. (Notice how I never knew of the Dungeons and Dragons until there was a ring on my finger). Brian played Dance Dance Revolution with Jesse.
Jeremy got me good with some silly string, it took me forever to wash the stuff out. On New Years Day I got to meet Brian's extended family on his mom's side. They always get together and have a lunch with mostly foods they like to eat, but they all have a little black eyed peas, collard greens, and hog jaw. Supposably eating those will bring health and money for the coming year.

We then flew back to Utah to begin another semester but now we were engaged.

Deciding to get married

*Warning: This is not the post about how we became engaged. We were unofficially engaged for a couple of weeks and this post will tell the story of how we got to that point.



After saying "I love you" our converstations started going into what would happen if we were to get married. It was just hypothetical senerios of what we hoped to do in the next few years and how we would pull that off if we were married. (Things like Brian wanted to return to France, and I wanted to finish school). As the semester started drawing to a close our conversations started getting more specific and we started to talk about if we actually wanted to get married. We decided that we would wait to decide until Valentines Day or so, to give us some more time. I figured that we would stay in Utah for the summer if we were engaged because I had a good job working as a bookkeeper, and if we went anywhere else we would have to both find jobs. So when Brian asked me if I would move to Tennessee for the summer if we were engaged I told him no, but I would go if we were married.



Then heading into reading days Brian says he thinks we should get married and asks me what I think. I had pushed the whole thought out of my mind for the time being because of finals coming up and I thought I had until Valentines Day to decide. So I thought about it over reading days (it probably did not help my scholarly studying), and one night after studying Brian and I went hot tubbing (nothing is better than sitting in warm water than when it is snowy outside), and we talked about it and decided we would get married.



We went home and we had to tell someone, but we didn't want tell everyone until there was a ring. So we told Bree. We went out in the hall as to not alert the rest of my roommates (they did get told the next morning), and Bree started laughing so much that people that were walking down the hall would stop to see what was going on and what was so funny. But we couldn't tell them which led to more laughter from the rest of us. Like I said I told the rest of my roommates the next morning and there was more happiness. Brian told his roommates and there was pretty much indifference. Boys. I called my parents and told them. My dad was in shock for a little bit, but said yes when Brian called him to officially ask for my hand.



Brian and I were trying to not tell everyone that we were getting married and planned on telling the rest of everyone after Christmas break. So after telling those closest to us we tried to rein in the telling of everyone. The problem was that Brian and I were the first ones in each of our families to get married so both of our parents were super excited and couldn't stop telling people. For example my family went to the denist after finals and my parents told the denist and my mom's defense was that we wouldn't see him again until we got married. Both of our parents told just about everyone, I am not sure why I bothered swearing all my roommates to secrecy.

I Love You and Thanksgiving

Brian got to meet my parents briefly when I locked my keys in my car and they had to come rescue me, but he had yet to meet my brother and sisters or spend any real time with my parents. My mom and dad invited him over for Thanksgiving, so he could get to meet my family. We had alot of fun, we played games, rode the horses and just hung out. Brian was really tired from working at 4:30 in the morning so he took a three hour nap, while my family and I put up Christmas decorations outside. We were really noisy, but he was out. I also managed to get my second staff infection, this time it was on my thigh so it was easy to hide. I realized what it was on Thanksgiving, but I didn't want to ruin Thanksgiving so I didn't say anything. That was really hard when my 8 year old brother sat on my lap.

Brian and I also spent some time without my family. We were cuddling and Brian told me he loved me. My roommate had asked me a couple of weeks earlier if I loved Brian so I had already thought about it, and was able to respond back that I loved him too. I realized that I loved Brian before he realized that he loved me, but he got to say it first.