That Day

My alarm clock went off and I got up, wistfully remembering the days of 1pm Church, where I didn't have to hear the dreaded EHHH! EHH! EHH!! EHHH!!! at the beginning of my Sunday. But I liked Sundays anyways. Joe spent the day with me. It usually meant we got to cook, we got to watch some kind of Doctor Who, and we got to take a nap, and maybe work on that 1000pc puzzle that never got finished.

We went to church, and I sat down in Relief Society and wrote those words.
It finally happened. I went crazy. With a lot of help from Joe. Actually, it's entirely his fault. He loves to fake me out in proposing. I'm growing impatient. Well, not really. I just feel foolish for thinking it will be one day and it's not. I'm just tired. I'm just gonna give up on it. Like I told myself. It's just not gonna happen. Argh. 

I sighed, and closed my journal, determined to make the best of the day anyways. We came home from church, and I was incredibly grumpy. I don't do well on fast Sundays.  The drive home was bedazzled with arguments between Brian and Joe, what library was better? The University of Utah Marriot Library or the BYU Harold B. Lee Library. Which had more books? Which was bigger? The drive was pretty funny, I liked listening to them bicker. But then we were home, and I wanted to cook since I was starving and those little demons that look for food in my body had found none and were eating away at my muscle. I kept asking what they wanted me to make but they didn't listen. I told Joe he had to stop the argument, it was up to him, but alas. No such thing. So I shut myself in my room and then climbed out my window to hide in the cold, until they found me.

And they did. Joe snuck up on me outside, I don't know how he knew I was outside but he did. We went back inside and the boys made me soup to make it up to me. It was tomato soup made out of enchilada sauce. Delicious. 

I was wearing sweats, that's what we do on Sundays, wear sweats and take naps. Joe was wearing jeans, though, and suddenly my baggy boy sweat pants felt out of place, so I ran to change. Instead of napping, he thought it'd be a fun time adventure to look for places where we'd like to get engagement photos taken. Begrudgingly, I did this... I mean, we weren't even engaged, and I resigned myself to the fact that it was never going to happen. 

Looking for pictures online suddenly wasn't enough and before we knew it, we were out the door in the wind and the cold, looking for places to take pictures. But it was oh so fun! Adventure was literally in the air! 

Down to Trolley Square in an attempts to climb the water tower. No such luck, back to the car!
Over to the Capitol Building to stand in the marble halls and feel cultural, and then back outside to climb on a buffalo statue. 
Up the street and down the mountain as a hike into Memory Grove. A quick run around there, and then a not-so quick run down the street just to see what was down there. Just a dry river that was pretty dry but wet enough to soak our shoes. 
By now, this adventure was seeming unusual... 

Up the mountain, to the car, and over to Lindsay Gardens where we spun on a child's merry go round, kissing until we were silly and dizzy, swinging on the swings until we were "married", playing baseball with a clod of dirt and a stick, and climbing the perilous wall made out of logs until we were at the top, feeling like we were at the top of the world. Over to a tree where we climbed out and kissed so we could actually be sitting in a tree K-I-S-S-I-N-G... 

A calm and peaceful moment, oh so sweet, when we drove to the cemetery and I met Joseph's grandma for the first time and as we were leaving I whispered to her that I loved her grandson and I wanted to marry him. 

Now for the long drive back up the mountain. By now I knew what was going on, and I decided to try and trick Joe into something, I don't know what, but I was gonna trick him. "You know... Fort Douglas is really close to my house. We should have gone there first, before it was so dark!"

"That's ok."

We drove around a lot, looking for parking, finally finding a place, just a few stalls away from a car that looked too familiar. 

Holding hands, we walked up. Up. Up. To the gazebo. There were no candles. Rather, there were no lit candles. They'd all blown out. The gazebo was dressed to the nines, though. And there Joseph told me how much he's loved me, what an adventure it's been to be together.

My mind flashed back to a warm summer night when he told me this and I panicked, wondering if it would be followed by the whole "So have fun at the U, and I'll be at BYU... maybe we'll see each other some time!" 

It wasn't followed by those words that time though, and it wasn't followed by that this time either. 

"There's one more thing I wanted to say." And he knelt.

A woman dreams about that day. At least, I did. I was familiar with engagements, and I dreamed of that fairy tale moment. The butterflies, the happiness.... I had given up on that at one point, I thought it didn't exist. But that moment when he knelt down.

"Lara, will you marry me?"

Writing those words even now give me chills. I couldn't say yes enough times, the world was spinning and I spun with it. He stood up and spun with me. He was mine, he was mine forever. 

I've worn this ring every day but one now, the day before our wedding when it was being cleaned. I'd say my favorite part at first was most definitely the shiny bit in the middle, but the longer we've been together, the longer it's been on my finger, the more the infinity symbol carved on both sides has come to mean to me. A promise of forever together, despite the turns life takes, despite the ups and downs, it's a promise of forever made permanent by a question he asked that day and an answer that was all too easy to give.