On Emily's blog, just in time for Valentine's Day, she had the story of how her and her hubby met. I did this a couple years ago, but with V-day and our 4 year anniversary coming up I thought I would just re-share it for those of you who haven't been following my blog for that long.
(Taken directly from my June 11, 2007 blog post)
June 2001: This first picture is my first memory of Martin. I'm pretty sure I had met him at church before, but this is the first time I can actually remember talking to him. It was at our church Youth Conference up at Beaver Mountain. I was 15. It was two or three weeks after my dad had died. We talked in the rain on the swings. I might have been crushing on him then, I'm not really sure, but I teased my friend for liking him. Not the friend in the picture by the way. She's always seen him as a big brother. If you notice, we have our sunglasses on upside down.
June 2001: This first picture is my first memory of Martin. I'm pretty sure I had met him at church before, but this is the first time I can actually remember talking to him. It was at our church Youth Conference up at Beaver Mountain. I was 15. It was two or three weeks after my dad had died. We talked in the rain on the swings. I might have been crushing on him then, I'm not really sure, but I teased my friend for liking him. Not the friend in the picture by the way. She's always seen him as a big brother. If you notice, we have our sunglasses on upside down.
September/October 2002: The next picture I have of us is our homecoming picture. We started dating on September 21, we went to a demolition derby with my family. Homecoming for my high school was on my birthday (Sept 28.) He wanted to take me but I was already going with someone else. Weber State's homecoming was two weeks later. Laura and Brian were going and invited us to go along at the last minute. Here's a quote from my journal about it.
''I've never had an experience like it... I didn't worry about the way I looked or how I was dancing or any of that, because I knew none of that mattered to him. He made me feel so at ease. We both had one of those moments where everyone else in the room disappears. It was awesome.''
The next picture is from when my family got together for my birthday around the same time. We dated for about six weeks. Spent almost every day together. Here's another quote from my journal.
''I feel that I love him as much as my seventeen-year-old-self knows. I love him. We've talked about marriage...and I know that there isn't just one person out there for me, but I believe there are people out there that I could make a marriage work and be happy with, and I believe he is one of those people.''
I thought that was a pretty mature take on love at 17.
February 2004: We pretty much lost contact over the next 16 months. We talked through instant message every once and a while. I dated, but no one compared to him. We started talking again regularly in January. He decided he would come back to Utah to take me to my high school's Sweethearts dance. He bought my dress and my best friend Emilee's dress as well. We hit it off right away. So we made plans for him to take me to Prom which was only a month away.
March/April 2004: For the little bit about Prom I'll take it directly from my journal. (It's actually my last entry. I'm horrible...At least I blog now.)
''March 24, 2004: Today was one of the best days ever. Martin surprised me by coming 6 days early. He was suppose to be here on the 30th and was going to miss Prom, but he's here so he can take me!! It was such a cool surprise! I had no idea. Susan, Emilee and I had planned a girls night out, or so I thought. It was kinda odd because when Susan showed up, Josh (her boyfriend) was with her. They blindfolded me and put me in the car. I could kinda tell which way we were headed, and where we were going, so I had an idea, but they did a good job to confuse me. We drove around forever waiting for him. I was carsick from having the blindfold on. Then he got in the car and took my blindfold off and it was him!! I love him so much! I can't believe he came early! I'm still in so much shock. I'm so happy. I have to be one of the luckiest girls in the world to have friends that would surprise me like that plus a boyfriend who would do that for me.''
We also went to St. George for spring break and Easter when he was here that time too. In the pictures we are hunting for Easter eggs.
July/August 2004: He went home with intentions to come back for my graduation, but he didn't have the money to come back so soon. He ended up being able to come back at the end of July with his brother Kevin. He had a great time here, but I don't have any pictures of it. Then I went back with Martin to England to meet his family. We saw everything. We went to London for a weekend with his friends, went to Warick Castle, Stratford upon Avon, and even spent a day up in the Cotswolds. It was so much fun. Leaving was so hard. I cried the entire plane ride to New York (about six hours) and on and off for the other four hours home. Here is us at the Tower of London.
Over the next 4 months we talked on the phone almost everyday for hours at a time. I was my own 10-10-987 commercial.
December 2004/January 2005: The next time he came over was December 10th. He wanted to spend Christmas with me. He proposed on December 19th. He was suppose to go home January 10th, but a couple days before that I told him that I didn't want him to go, so he called the embassy and they told him a way where he could stay. So we planned a wedding and about 6 weeks later we got married.
Now I'll add about our married life.
February 2005: As stated above we had 6 weeks to plan our wedding. I'm not very fussy when it comes to things like that so the wedding and reception were pretty low key.
Our engagement photo.
We got married on February 26, 2005. I can't believe it's almost been four years.
June/July 2005: This picture was taken when Monika and Kevin visited that year. For the first few months we were married we lived with Seth in the 'Layton house.' We moved into our own apartment in Clearfield for 10 months and then moved back in with Seth until January of last year.
June 2006: Abbi joined our little family. I know I'm obsessed, but she really is a joy to have. She has a way to just make things better when times are hard.
August 2006: Lake Powell: Our only real vacation since we've been married. I'm very excited for Whitney and Kevin's wedding this year in California so we can get away again.
May 2007-Present: More of the same. We change jobs, small goals, and other little things, but it is still just us. Thinking back there haven't been big monumental changes. Kids would be the biggest change. We're almost ready for that leap, but I've enjoyed the time we've had to get to know, and spend time with each other.
