Love Is In The Air

I'm anti-Valentine's Day as far as doing any kind of gift exchange. I would much rather my husband do something romantic for me because he WANTS to and not because he's OBLIGATED. We acknowledge the holiday, but don't do any type of celebration for it. This year I thought it would be fun to post about how Nick and I met since Valentine's Day is all about love! Aww!

Our story is a little crazy since he lived in Bountiful, Utah and I was from Gilbert, Arizona and we met in Nauvoo, Illinois. Nick was in Nauvoo because at the time he worked for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints at the Conference Center in Salt Lake as a Master Electrician. How's that for wordy?! He helped with the lighting for all the shows performed in the Conference Center and the local pageants around Utah. In 2005 he was asked to go to Nauvoo for 6 weeks to do the lighting for the Nauvoo Pageant.

I had spent the last 5 summers in Nauvoo because my parents owned a Bed and Breakfast there and after I graduated high school I moved there to go to school. I worked in a restaurant where Nick's crew ate breakfast every morning and then I volunteered at the pageant site every night. Needless to say, we crossed paths several times.

Nick wasn't one for coming to the restaurant for breakfast so it was rare that I saw him there. He had two roommates that convinced him he needed to go to breakfast with them to come check out this really cute waitress. It turns out the cute waitress was my roommate who also worked with me. Sad for me, but it was okay because sure he was cute and all, but I was interested in another guy.

*Nick claims that they went to check out my roommate, but he found me cuter than her. I guess he married me so maybe there's some truth to it, but she was dating someone so he didn't have much of a chance with her! :)

Towards the end of the summer, Nick and his two roommates asked me and two other girls if we'd like to come over for dinner at their condo. It was a casual group date, but Nick and I got paired off together for the game we played. It was probably planned. Boys are sneakier than we give them credit for!

*Random side note: I took the most awful dessert to the dinner. I used half and half instead of whipping cream. BIG DIFFERENCE! Ha! I'm surprised Nick was even willing to date me after learning I couldn't even make a simple dessert!

Anyway, he decided to try to get to know me better and started inviting me over to his condo after the pageant was done each night. I took him up on his offer once or twice, but I had it in my head that I liked someone else so I tried my best not to be interested. Then there was one night that my world came crashing down on me. All in one phone call I found out my mom had to have a major surgery, my grandpa wasn't doing well and probably wasn't going to live much longer, and my uncle was diagnosed with terminal cancer and given 6 months to live. I found myself feeling very sad and alone. My only family was 1600 miles away (in Arizona) and 3 of them were suffering.

Nick called me that night to see if I wanted to come over and I told him I wasn't feeling up to it. I informed him of the news I had just received prior to his call and he responded to my heartache by asking me if I would like a blessing.

Wait, what? Who is this guy? He hardly knows me and here he is offering me something so sacred and special. I was taken by surprise. I had only been give a handful of blessings up to that point in my life and all of them were something I had to ask for; never offered. I turned him down because I had an unrealistic understanding of what Priesthood blessings were for and I felt like my situation wasn't important enough to be bothered with a blessing. Sure the 3 family members facing their hardships could use blessings, but not me. But in that conversation it dawned on me, someone willing to offer me a blessing is someone worth getting to know better.

I decided I didn't want to sit at home and sulk so I showed up on his doorstep with some movies and hung out with him the rest of the night. From there we hung out every day until he had to go back to Bountiful. Then we dated long distance with several plane trips back and forth while I still lived in Nauvoo and then back and forth when I moved back to Arizona.

He proposed to me a couple days before Valentine's Day in 2006 (only because that's when I flew to Utah... otherwise I would have been very against the coincidence), we got married that May, and the rest is history. The proposal is another great story, but I'll save that one for another day.