You just know

A few years ago I am sitting with a group of friends at a mutual good friends missionary farewell. I learn that one of my friends has bought a dress and started planning a wedding before she is officially proposed too. My immediate thought was, "whaaaat??" I turned to her and I asked her how she felt comfortable buying things for a wedding without it being "official" first. Her response has stuck with me ever since. She looked at me and said, "Andi.... When you know, you know."

What? That doesn't even make sense.

And it didn't make sense in my "single" brain for more than 2 years afterwards.

We woke up late Sunday, 8:17 AM to be exact... we have church at 9. I hardly even thought about my outfit and literally threw on clothes.
Black skirt, gold sequend top, black blazer.
As we park in the church lot and I get out of the car, I see that I have lint all over my skirt. How did I not see this before?! I was so embarassed. However, there was nothing I could do at this point. The only available seats when we got to church were on the front row. All through relief society I sat self conscious about my skirt, which led to thoughts of, "Do I have lint and hair strands on the back of my blazer too? Do I have pieces of my bun sticking out? Crap I look awful today. These ladies are going to think I don't know how to check myself in a mirror before I leave for the day."

After that first hour of church Jeff and I could reunite for the last 2 hours; I felt instantly better when I was with him. Not self conscious one bit. During the second lesson  my mind wandered to the day before, Saturday. My attire consisted of the sweats I slept in the night before and hair that was kinky/wavy from my bun the day before.. basically everything was from the day beforre. My "getting ready" routine Saturday consisted of throwing my hair in a clip, a headband to keep fly aways tamed and a freshly washed face. All day I deep cleaned, organized and cleaned some more. Not once did I feel awkward around Jeff. He kept telling me how much I was accomplishing and how impressed he was, he kept sneaking kisses to me and pulling me into hugs.

As a teen and pre-married lady, I always wondered if I would be able to be a grunge around my husband. If he would still love me, kiss me and not be ashamed of how I looked. (Granted, I did not leave the house Saturday). But, Jeff did. He did all of those things, and guess what... I still felt attractive to him, I still felt loved and appreciated. He saw the raw side of Andrea again on Saturday, and he was just fine with it.

Yesterday we had one of our really good friends over for dinner. Jeff and I were asking about his love life and what new ladies were in the scenes these days. He was verbalizing thoughts that I once had myself, before I met my husband of course. He said he hopes he "knows" when he meets her, that it will work out and somehow that he will be ready.

I had the perfect opportunity to tell him the wise words that Natasha had told me a few years ago. "Adam, it's weird... but when you know, you know."

To all my single friends that read this blog (ones I know and ones I haven't met yet) some lucky man out there is going to love you for all of your quirks and imperfections. He will love your beautiful make-up-less face, he will love your sweats and messy-bun hair, and why? Because he will love you for you.

After our first date, somehow I knew that Jeff was a different kind of person. Somehow I knew that things were going to be different and I prayed and hoped they would be different. Somehow through our entire courtship I could be completely myselft without any awkwardness and still felt completely comfortable around him.

Somehow.... I just knew that I knew.

The Meet

I have decided to share not only the "proposal story" but to break up this story of how we came to be "Jeff and Andrea."

Our story actually goes back a year ago. I had just moved to good ol' Ogden and started my first Sunday in my singles ward. The leaders had asked for all new members of the ward to go to a separate room to have their picture taken. When we got to the other room there were a good handful of us that were waiting for our little photo debut. Me, being the talkative social butterfly that I am, I turned to one of the people standing next to me and said, "Hey! I'm Andrea, what's your name? :)"

And with a one worded reply, "Jeff" and a turn of the head, that was how it started.

Now this all didn't click until months and months later. You see, at this time, I was super busy with family, my new calling on the Institute Council, new roommates, new area... basically just the new of new. I went home to my moms frequently for different social functions and chose to make a weekend out of it. I ended up staying most weekends and attending church down with her. Around October I made the decision that I needed to be more involved with my ward and I decided to attend there more frequently.

Paralleling my story is Jeff's. He too went to the singles ward to try it out that first Sunday in May, and at the time we "met" he actually was dating someone, hence the cold shoulder. He didn't really come to the singles ward during the summer or as school started, and then around the same time I made my decision to make more of a committment to come to our ward, so did he.

You might be thinking, "Wait one moment here Miss Andrea... you both said you met in your accounting class..." Yes. That is what we origianlly thought. We took this dreaded accounting class, never sat by each other,  never really talked to each other, but we kinda noticed each other. One Fast Sunday I bore my testimony and talked about a tender mercy with this particular class. Jeff and I bumped into each other in the hallway and I noticed his cute little smile, his purple and gray argyle sweater, and his oh so delicious cologne, and he noticed me as the girl that bore her testimony. I told him that he looked familiar and I think I had seen him in my accounting class.

That is where accounting came into the picture.

I believe it was on our second or 3rd date that we had put together that we had met all those months before.

So now you know how we met, let's talk about the dating...

first kiss

i decided tonight, that reading this blog, and this post was a lot more exciting than doing homework.

however, i did get some homework done. 

since this blog is post "first kiss" experience, i thought i should should share that oh so blessed experience.

my first kiss was with a boy a grade older than me at school. i was 16. we had just come home from a concert put on by one of our friends at a little club on state street. the entire night he was super sweet, kept holding my hand and having his arm around me, ya know, all that "cute-sy" stuff. then when he walked me to my door, he leaned in and viola! 

literally 5 seconds later my mom comes driving down the street and pulls in the driveway. talk about perfect timing eh?

and that is my very first "first kiss" story.