Happy Anniversary Baby!

Steve and I celebrated our 6th anniversary this past Friday. My parents were kind enough to watch our kids and we spent a couple of days in Lava Hot Springs. I told Steve that it would be enough for me just to have a couple days without the kids and take a nap or something. It was a really nice, relaxing time though. In honor of our anniversary, I decided to tell our engagement story. If that sort of thing doesn't sound appealing to you, stop reading now!

We were dating for about three months (I know, three whole months!) when we started hinting around about getting married. For some reason, neither of us ever said the words married, wedding, or engaged, until we were actually engaged though. Just how we were. One day Steve asked if I would want to pick out my own ring or just be surprised. That was the most straight forward thing he had ever said about getting married. So we ended up going ring shopping. I didn't pick one out in particular but I showed him several that were my style. I remember the lady helping us asked "How long have you been engaged?" and Steve said, "We're not engaged yet" and she said "Hate to break it to you but she (pointing to me) probably thinks you are."

I was never one who had my entire wedding planned out and colors picked out and centerpieces chosen by the time I was 13. I pretty much had no ideas of what I wanted my wedding to be before I got engaged. But I did want my future husband to ask my dad for my hand. I always loved that idea and Steve knew that and told me that he would talk to my parents at Thanksgiving, which was a little less than two weeks away.

The next week we had a date on Friday. It was November 22, 2002. He came to pick me up and brought two yellow rose, "symbolizing our friendship" he told me. Then he took me to Macaroni Grill downtown, which is one of my favorite restaurants. After that we went for a drive up Emigration Canyon, to the same place where we had our first kiss. He asked me if I would dance with him and of course I said yes. We got out of his truck and he turned on Bryan Adam's "Everything I do." The whole time I was thinking, "This date is so perfect it would be a great way to propose, but he hasn't talked to my parents yet." About half way through the song he told me that on Wednesday of that week, when I thought he was at a hockey game with his friends, he was really driving up to Pocatello to talk to my parents. That's when he dropped to one knee, pulled the ring box out of his pocket, and asked me to marry him. Obviously, I said yes. Then we finished dancing out the song and he went to the back of his truck and pulled out a dozen red roses.

I called my parents right then to let them know (even though they already knew). My mom asked "What does the ring look like?" And I said "I don't know" because it was dark and I hadn't even looked at it yet. Steve had chosen the perfect one. Another funny part of the night was at dinner. We had a group sitting one booth over who were all pretty hammered. One guy in particular was loudly going off about how cheesy and annoying Bryan Adams songs are. He specifically mentioned "Everything I Do" as being one of the worst songs ever. Steve was dying, because he had already been planning to use that song. It didn't ruin the night or anything though. Steve was so thorough in surprising me, that even though he didn't go to the hockey game on Wednesday, he looked up the score and the highlights of the game just in case I asked about it. I think I was at some school inservice meeting that night.

Almost exactly two months later, we got married, on January 23, 2003. So from the day we met until the day we were married it was about 5 months. That was definitely faster than I ever thought I would get married, but when it's right, it's right.

Happy Anniversary Baby!