An entertaining discovery

While cleaning up the computer I just came across another, very entertaining discovery, but it requires a story. I fun story. The story of our engagement. I don't think I have told this story here before, and if I have, it was long ago.

Spencer came home from a mission for the LDS Church July 30, 2000. We hadn't seen each other in just over 2 years. We had written, oh man had we written! We have 2 crates full of letters to one another down in our basement. We just can't bring ourselves to get rid of them.

The first month home, we spent a whirlwind month where we spent just about every day together. We spent a few days on vacation with my family. Came home early to fly to California. Spent a week with Spencer's family then drove back to Utah for Spencer's homecoming with his parents only to turn around and drive back to California with them for the last 2 days of our time in California then we turned around and flew back home.

Spencer had everything set up to go back to school, he found a job, and he was getting back to normal life.

August 25, we planned to go hiking to Ensign Peak, but I had an emergency at work and ended up working late.

August 26, we went to the symphony under the stars, complete with 21 gun salute and a cannon accompaniment on the chorus, but it was rained out. Pouring rain. So, Spencer suggested we go out to dinner. Only problem, we were soaking wet! So we stopped by Wendy's and went through the drive-thru to get some dinner.

August 27, we were supposed to go to a missionary homecoming at Spencer's ward. Spencer didn't have a car yet so I got to his house about 10 minutes before we were supposed to be there to pick him up and he wasn't ready! How frustrating! I waited for him for about 5 minutes, his whole family left for church. I told them we would meet them there. Five more minutes and we were going to be late so I yelled down to Spencer to see if he was just about ready. He mumbled something about almost ready, just a few more minutes, something to that effect. Finally getting frustrated I went down to the front door and yelled to him that we needed to go! He finally came out and took my hand and said "Just a minute, we need to talk." So we went back upstairs and he had me sit down and he started talking.

He was telling me how we had been spending so much time since he got home, and he had really enjoyed it, but he wasn't able to focus on his schoolwork, and he was starting a job the next day. My heart started racing. He was breaking up with me! I could not believe it! I thought things had been going so well, where had I gone wrong? I was having a hard time focusing on what he was saying because I was just in shock. The shock increased when I realized that he was now down on one knee in front of the chair I was sitting on. Now my heart was really racing, I was so confused. What's going on?? Then he said the four words any woman in love wants to hear "Will you marry me?" I don't think it even took me a minute to answer. I think I said yes more than once. I remember hugging, and kissing.

Once we finally got out the door Spencer had just one request. He asked that I not tell anyone until after he spoke in my ward that day. He didn't want my dad glaring at him while he spoke. So the entire time he was speaking, I sat at the end of the row doodling on a piece of paper. As he finished I finally passed the paper down the row to my mom then told her after she saw it she could show it to the others.

The outside...

The inside.

(edited to removed my maiden name and my married name that I had in parenthesis on the bottom)

Directly following Spencer's talk (I couldn't tell you a single word that he said) there was a bagpiper playing. One of my parents neighbors said we were so loud that she could hear us over the bagpipers.

Spencer had tried to propose at sunset on Ensign Peak, at the orchestra under the stars and he just couldn't wait another week. I love our engagement story. I love all the failed attempts. I love my husband!

Background - Dating Spencer

Luckily for us the car passed inspection and Spencer appologized for getting upset. And luckily for me my friend wanted me to get a date specifically Spencer to go to a dance with her again. You see, she wanted me to ask Spencer because she wanted to ask the guy I had taken to the last dance. So a little hesitantly I asked him, and for whatever reason he decided to come.




















We became good friends. Spencer didn't want to have a girlfriend. He was getting ready to go on a mission for the LDS church, we were only 18, he had never had a serious girlfriend. There were so many reasons why the time was wrong we were wrong, but it didn't change our feelings for each other.

We dated for 8 months until Spencer got his mission call to the Texas McAllen Mission. We broke up a few days later knowing that I was going to date while he was gone there was no use postponing the inevitable. We were only broken up for about 2 weeks and we decided he was going to be here 2 more months, no reason to jump the gun.




















We wrote weekly the entire 2 years that he was gone. Spencer attributes the fact that I was still available when he got home to my little sister who made sure to tell anyone that I dated that she wasn't fond of them. (I think the word she used was "hate.") He got home from his mission July 31, 2000. He was released from his mission the next day. We left on a trip with my parents August 3. It was a little scary we had planned a 2 week trip together. One week with my parents, then we hurried home to fly to California to spend a week with his family. What if we couldn't stand each other after all this time? Lucky for us we still liked each other. After spending 2 weeks together we knew we wanted to spend the rest of our life together. We were engaged 2 weeks later.

Looking back I realize what a crazy whirlwind time this was for us, but we just wanted to get going with our life. We were married 3 months later on November 18, 2000. It was perfect. Okay, if you call freezing temperatures perfect, but honestly, I wouldn't have it any other way now. We were so happy and that what made it perfect.

Background - My husband

Spencer moved to my neighborhood when we were both in Jr High. It was a good thing we didn't meet until 2 weeks before we graduated from high school or I am pretty sure he wouldn't be my husband now. We were so different back then, what am I saying, we are so different now, but the time was right that we were able to make things work.






















We were both in AP Chemistry classes our Senior year of high school and at the end of the school year they did a field trip to Lagoon (the local amusement park). I think we were supposed to do some sort of ride the rides and write a paper about how science was involved, but really it was just a day off school that we got to go to an amusement park with friends, no parents.

Somehow all through high school Spencer and I had been friends with the same friends and never met. There were 8 of us riding rides together which was perfect because some rides you had to ride 2 together. I, unfortunately have horrible motion sickness and after riding a few rides I was getting more than a little queasy. I decided to sit the next extremely fast loopy gut wrenching ride out. Spencer having grown up going to "much better" (his words) amusement parks decided to sit the ride out too. I was so grateful for his company. I hated holding the others back, but I didn't think I could handle one more twist, turn, or bump. The rest of the day we talked, we made fun of our friends for their horrible sunburns, laughing that neither of us was burned at all. I had no idea that he was painfully shy. I guess I must have taken the lead in our conversation, but he was so easy to talk to, funny, just an all around nice guy.

On the bus ride back to school we were talking about a party that was at our English teachers house that night. Spencer didn't have enough gas to go because he was going skydiving the next day and had a major gas guzzling car. So I offered for him to come to the party with me. By that evening I think we were the two that were the most sunburned and the tables were turned.

After graduation Spencer moved out to California to work to earn money for his mission. I didn't even know that he had gone until after he was back. We weren't really friends or anything, he didn't have any reason to tell me he was leaving. We hadn't even been on a date. After working in a factory for 3 months making windows he had had enough and moved back to Utah.

The week after he was back, our friend (one of the people that we went to Lagoon with) invited us both and a few other friends to an institute dance at the University of Utah. Honestly, it was the lamest dance I have ever been to. We sat out in the foyer and parking lot for a lot of it. My friend (who was a senior in High School that year) had come with me and she was disappointed that she hadn't danced a single dance so I asked Spencer if he would ask her to dance, just one dance. The entire way home my friend talked about what a nice guy he was, how cute he was, just how great. A few weeks later there was a Halloween dance at her school and she really wanted to go, and she really wanted to ask Spencer. So I found a date and she took Spencer and I went with my friend who had invited us to the institute dance.


Spencer and my friend are both so shy they didn't have a lot to say to one another. They had fun, mostly because we had devil costumes and the two guys were having a dual with their pitchforks the entire evening, but they didn't really click. I on the other hand thought he was smart, and funny, and easy to be around.

Two days later my cousin (who was also a senior in high school at the time) called me trying to find someone to go on a double date with her. Her parents had a very strict rule of no single dating while they were in high school. That week was called "Wacky Women's Week" at their school and the girls were supposed to ask guys on dates I think it was every day and there was a them for each day. She had gotten up the courage and asked a guy that she really liked but her friends weren't able to go the day that he was. I made a few calls and had no luck. Finally I called Spencer and asked him what he was doing the next night. He told me that he was sleeping. I told him that sleep was highly overrated and that he should come with me.

The theme for that night was something like "Grandparents and Games" I THINK. All I know is that we went to my Grandparents house and they showed Spencer and my cousin's date all sorts of old pictures of us, we played domino's then went to my cousins house for dinner. We ate dinner on the floor at the coffee table (I am not sure if that was part of the wacky women's week or not). That was probably one of the best dates I had ever been on.

On the way home from my cousin's house we started talking and I was telling Spencer about this old car that we were selling. My parents had an old 1983 (I think) Dodge Colt, think Geo Metro they let us drive it while we were in high school but after we graduated we had to get our own car. They had a few years before my younger sister would need one so they were selling this one and would get another when they needed it. I had just bought my first car, a candy-apple red Chevy S-10 pickup. I had been adamant that I wanted a truck. I had always tried to be tough, and to me a truck was tough, even a tiny wannabe truck like that.

Spencer came over and talked to my parents about it and decided to buy it. He was getting 8 miles per gallon in the car he had and this one got 30-35 miles per gallon. When he bought it I told him that it smoked so he had to be sure to add an oil additive to it so that it would pass emissions, I even left a bottle of it in the trunk for him. He thought that meant that I had added it. The next day he called me at work cussing that it hadn't passed emissions. I was so angry I thought he was so rude and such a jerk. I asked him if he had added the oil additive and told him if he didn't want the car to just bring it back. That night I told my parents if I never saw him again it would be too soon!