Matt's Point of View

Hi, so I'm Matt. I don't know what details Emily has told about how we met and our first dates, so I'm gonna tell it how I remember it. I think the best place to start, like the best place to start talking about Christmas gifts is with Santa Clause, is with Brenda. Remember, Brenda = Santa Clause, Emily = Christmas Gift. Now that I've made it as confusing as possible I can start. Brenda started telling me about her niece that I just had to meet. A lot of my mom's friends from relief society had nieces or grand daughters or recent parolees that I should really get to know, so I didn't exactly take it seriously. That started about novemberish of 2008, so i might have been a good thing I didn't rush off to find Emily. There's a right time and a wrong time to get a Christmas gift, open it early and Santa's unhappy, so I guess the time had to be right to find Emily.

Anyway, enough with the cheesy analogy. School let out for the Summer and I got call telling me that the niece was coming to town in a few days and was expecting a phone call to set up a date. This was with her niece, not a parolee, so I gave her a call and set up the date. It was simple, dinner alone and then board games with some friends. So simple, I'm surprised it fell through.

The first thing that happened when I went to Brenda's to pick her up, was a surprise from Erin (Brenda's Husband). He introduced Emily's sister as Emily. Emily's newly engaged and very much in love sister. I reached to shake her hand and she jumped nearly two feet to plaster herself against her fiancee with that engagement ring extended as far as she could get it without touching me. It was as awkward as it sounds, Heather and I are friends now though. I have to hand it to Erin, it couldn't have gone better if he had planned it.

The sandwich shop I had planned on was closed and so we had to improv a meal. Wal mart normally wouldn't cut it for a substitute, but tonight didn't start normal so I shouldn't have expected normal. She just seemed so calm despite the fact that I thought everything was going wrong. The one part that went according to plan was the board game. Four of my friends thankfully showed up on time to play a few games while my nephew tried desperately to join in.

He had been having .... issues.... like many eighteen month old children do, so I wasn't exactly thrilled about his addition to the fun. Ok, the past four nights in a row little Matthew had thrown up without warning and in some awkward places. He'd been eating gummy bears and technicolor vomit just wasn't going to go well on a first date. Thankfully, he kept the bears down until he got home and I got a yes when I asked Emily out about three weeks later.

Our Fairy Tale Story

I thought our first post should tell our story. We first met back in April, just after Matt's birthday. My brother was headed up to visit our aunt one weekend, and that sounded like fun so I thought I'd come along. When I told her I was coming she said she wanted to set up a date for me, someone she'd wanted to set me up with since I'd come home from my mission. I said that was ok, he called and we went out on our first date. I felt very much like I could be myself around him, and had a lot of fun. Honestly didn't think it was likely to go anywhere, but I was willing for another date.

He added me as a friend on facebook, and made one attempt to ask me out via facebook, which didn't work - I didn't get the message. So we chatted online once and decided he would take me to Star Trek. He called me, set it up and we had a good time. He dropped me off at 10:00 which was too early for me, so I texted him and asked him to go hiking with me the next day. The hike was tons of fun and we connected very well.

We continued dating, going back and forth between his home and mine, 90 minutes apart. One weekend here, one there. Things progressed pretty fast, our first kiss the next weekend, and we decided soon we were officially dating. He was really sweet for my birthday, gave me a stuffed arctic fox who we've named "Hielo." He even got it delivered to me on my actually birthday even though I didn't see him till the day after.

Things were getting more serious. My sister got married the next weekend and things were good. The following weekend we went to a comedy club, and I sort had this weird sort of thing happen, where at the beginning of the night I was annoyed and didn't even really like him for a minute, to resolving things where I remembered how much I did love him and how at peace I'd mostly felt about life since I'd met him. Somehow, through all the confusion I created, that night on the doorstep he asked me to marry him. :) Actually, he told me to marry him and I said ok, but its about the same thing.

Wedding planning began, but we were able to have so much fun throughout the summer. On short notice I took one last trip without him to Texas and visit all the people I love there. We went together to concerts, up canyons, and even just my backyard swing. We spent a lot of time with family getting to know each others families better. He even braved family vacation with my whole family to Yellowstone. And then treated me to going with some of his family to San Diego to the beach and to the play "Wicked." Before we knew it the wedding arrived, and now we're together forever, starting our "happily ever after."