When the Kristin's student teaching was over, I was a little bummed. Kristin was spending a lot of time with another guy at Church and I was a little sad. The previous three months were difficult in terms of dating. Soon, Kristin would be heading home. I didn't know if I would see her again. I spoke with Kristin's roommate to find out how she feels. DTR (Define the Relationship) talks are hard. I wanted to know if I was wasting my time. Her roommate said I was. That made me more sad. Luckily for me, I didn't confront Kristin with this. Instead, when it was time for Kristin to go, I helped her move some stuff. I got her email address and emailed her occasionally over the next couple of weeks. Next thing I know, Kristin is back in Provo and she calls me up to see if I want to visit. I was so excited that I drove right down there. This was the start of our relationship.
Over the next several months, we spent a lot of time together. Whenever I had a free moment, I tried to spend it with Kristin. I spent a lot of time driving down to her place, braving traffic and late night drives home alone. It was all worth it. It was May, about five months after we started dating. We starting talking a little more about our relationship. When I first met Kristin, back in August 2005, I knew I wanted to marry her, only she didn't know it. The more we talked about marriage, the more it seemed like a good idea. The only problem is that we had been dating for a short period. We didn't want to be one of "those" that dated for 3 months and then got married. At this point, we tentatively planned on December 2006.
I was half way though my MBA and things were great. We continued dating through the summer and started preparing for our wedding. We weren't even engaged yet. During the summer, we made a trip to California to visit my parents. We also went to San Diego and had fun at the beach. While we were there, we visited the Redlands, Newport Beach, and San Diego Temples. One could say we were Temple Shopping. Since we were planning for a December wedding, we didn't want it to be in a cold place. We decided that Newport Beach would be best because that's where the majority of my family and friends are located. We expected Kristin's family attendance to be smaller.
So now we have our wedding location picked out. During July, Kristin went to visit her parents. She calls me and next thing I know, she already has her wedding dress. I was a little worried because she said it was crème color and had antique lace. I worried that it might be too old fashioned. Turns out the dress was beautiful.
Next, we went ring shopping and this was a long and tedious process. I couldn't find anything I liked. While there were many that Kristin liked, I didn't any that I thought were good enough for her. Kristin didn't want a ring that was too big. I think I knew a little better. It took about 6 weeks but I found the perfect ring. We also picked out our wedding invitations during this time and created our address list. We did the invitations ourselves so we could have exactly what we wanted. We wanted classy, but simple. With my connections at work, all of our invitations and reply cards cost us around $100.
So, to summarize, we now have our wedding location, wedding dress, wedding ring, address list, and wedding invitations, but still no engagement. A little strange, don't you think?
In October 2006, we went back to visit Kristin's family to make some apple cider. We brought a game with us that we though everyone would like to play. One of Kristin's friends introduced us to this game. The game was "Tsuro, the Game of Paths". More on this later. We arrived late on Friday, October 13, 2006 and didn't stay up too late. I spoke with Kristin's parents on Saturday, to ask for their permission and to quell any fears or uncertainties they may have had.
A few days later I proposed to Kristin. I got down on one knee and reminded her about the game we had played with her family. In Tsuro, your piece moves along a specific path. You control your path but sometimes it takes you to a place you don't expect. I told Kristin about how sometimes in the life we choose our path, but sometimes it is chosen for us. I told her that I wanted to change her path in life and asked her to marry me. Kristin was very happy and gave me a big hug. We held each other for a while and things were good. If you couldn't tell, she said yes. Everything was now complete.
After all of it, we noticed we did some of the traditional things backwards. We were cuddling before we were holding hands. We had our wedding announcements before we were engaged. We both think it's funny. At night, Kristin is usually the hot one while Steven is often cold. In every aspect, we complement each other well.
Some pictures from our engagement can be seen by clicking here.
