From the Beginning

So... I already suck at blogging. It's been almost a month since my first post, and while I think about how I should blog nightly, I have yet to post again! Maybe it's the blog anxiety that's getting to me. I even went on a fun family excursion and took pictures constantly with the intention of blogging about it as soon as I got home, but have yet to even download the pictures to my computer. I guess the days of motivation have been left to my myspace days when I would come home from doing nothing and I'd have 74 pictures posted that night. Or maybe it's due to the fact that every time I try to blog, my husband threatens to take his pants off. Anyways... I've decided that before I post about our wedding day with lots of pictures, I will introduce the one and only husband with telling our story!
While going to Utah State, I lived in a house with my best friends, Natalie Johnson, Kara Brooks, Jenny Thain, Caitlin Boyer and Jessica Nichols. We named our house the SheWolf house because obviously Shakira is really inspiring, and because no one can do the SheWolf dance like Cait. We had a group of guys that we always hung out with, and the house where we often ended up happened to be where Tyson lived. Tyson lived with our good friends Matt and Doyle but didn't hang out with us much. He probably found us loud and annoying when in fact we were probably loud, but never annoying! Once in awhile Tyson would be around watching a Jazz game or coming in and out of the door and we'd say hi to him, maybe converse a little. But nothing much.
Side note... One time my friends and I left Matt, Doyle and Tyson's house and Tyson asked who I was. Matt told him I was good at snowboarding, and Tyson said, "I love her already!" I guess it was love at first site or him!
So once we realized we both were snowboarding feens, we'd talk more and tyson started coming around more.

This is our first picture together... beautiful isn't it? haha. we don't look our best...

So we were both up snowboarding about 4 times a week. We are both just slightly obsessed... We happened to have similar school schedules so we'd be riding the same days and would see each other often. When we'd see each other we'd ride all day together and we got to know each other real well with the long and slow chair lift rides. It was on these that I started to feel this little tinge of excitement of liking someone! Tyson is a really, really good snowboarder, which I guess you can say is a real turn on for me. If it weren't for this, we might not be married! I think I liked him first because he was so good at snowboarding. Is that bad? I don't fall for people easily, and if I like someone one day, I usually find them annoying the next, so I didn't think much of it. As time went on, I remember coming home from snowboarding one day, and had been with tyson and Jess Nichols and i felt like I had to claim to Jess that I thought Tyson was cute because I was worried if I didn't that they might fall in love. haha.
Well Tyson and I started planning on going snowboarding together and driving up together more and more often, and then we started hanging out off the mountain.

This was my first snowboarding competition. Tyson was so supportive even though I didn't ride my best. It was fun to have him there!

The first time Tyson invited me over to watch a movie with his friends I was excited, but so nervous! After the movie instead of taking me home (which was right down the street) he pulled into his driveway. I got way nervous and probably weird because I didn't know if he was going to try and kiss me or something, because it was late and I thought he was going to take me home after. I didn't want to kiss him yet so I was probably way awkward. haha. I went in very skeptical and we ended up just talking forever. From there we just kept hanging out and snowboarding lots. 

We had been dating a few months and I liked him, but wasn't about to call him my boyfriend. He even brought it up once, but I told him I wouldn't call him my boyfriend, but i didn't care if he called me his girlfriend. ha ha I'm a piece of work. 

Then came what we like to call the couples retreat! For spring break, we went to Mexico with tons of friends from Utah State. It was so so fun, and all of us best friends were at the same stage of dating with the guys we liked and we were all there in Mexico together! This helped to all be dating guys at the same time, because us girls loved being together, and if you dated one of us you dated all of us because we always had to be together. We didn't like to miss out on being with each other by going on dates, so we usually just hung out with each other. So being able to all start dating people at the same time was the only way it could happen! In mexico, the four of us couples were always together. it was so fun!

The four couples

                          

I think Mexico is where we all started falling in love. ha sounds cheesy. But it was way fun, and we all spent a lot of time together.

Later that month I had all my friends over to my house in Sandy for a birthday dinner and Tyson unofficially met my family. I think he's still bugged at me for this encounter... I never brought guys i liked to my house, and I didn't want the attention from my family that there was a guy in the picture, so I acted like he was just another friend and didn't give him the attention he deserved! Sorry tys!

The next month I met Tyson's family! I was so, so nervous. I had never been to this stage with a guy before so it was scary. Natalie had to pep talk me so I didn't bail out. I met them going to a movie for one of the nephews birthdays. They were all so nice and made it so comfortable.

                                         

Tyson's Graduation

A month later Tyson graduated and I moved home for the summer. I was excited to see what the summer being farther distance brought. We were only an hour away from each other, so we saw each other often, but we'd only see each other for a day or two at a time. 

Idaho

We went to Idaho to my family's ranch. bringing Tyson to a family trip was quite the big deal for me! My family knew it was getting serious if i'd do this. We said I love you at some point in the summer. I didn't know if i loved him because at the time i didn't know what love meant, and I was worried i wouldn't be ready to say it back when the time came. When he said it, I got butterflies and was so happy and said it back. I figured, if I didn't know what love meant, I couldn't wait to find out. 

Bloomington Lake with Tyson's new puppy

We also went to Bear Lake to Tyson's cabin a lot that summer and Tyson got a new puppy. His name is Big's and Tyson is obsessed with him! That will be for another post...

                                           

 

Dirty Dash with my sister and Tyson's Bro and Sis

August came and it was back up to school. It was nice to be closer to tyson again. A 20 minute drive was better than 60. We ran the Dirty Dash in September with his fam and my sister. 

Halloween!

This post is long enough... so lets skip forward a few months! We talked about getting married, but it was something that always felt like it would happen some day, but not for a long time. We spent Thanksgiving and Christmas with my family, and the day after Christmas we went ring shopping for the first time. I was a little skeptical at first, because I didn't know if I was ready for such a big step! I quickly got really excited and loved picking out and designing my ring with Tyson. Even after we had designed the ring, I still felt like it was something that was far far away.

Hike with brother Nic and all the puppies

The jazz game when jenny got engaged in February

Jenny got engaged to Matt in February! so fun and exciting. It started becoming real that we were all moving on and that we were going to be all getting married after Jenny got engaged. it was so fun to all be planning our futures and our weddings around the same time.

Brother's wedding in Febuary

March came and I knew Tyson had my ring and I seriously couldn't wait to see it! But i still felt like it was going to be awhile before it happened and i was completely taken by surprise when it did!

We're engaged!! So Tyson and I went snowboarding and Tyson wanted to go to the back country and hike so we could find better snow. Typical! I hate hiking, but I knew he wanted to so I acted like I was fine with it... for a minute. After we got going, I was quickly reminded why I hated it and I started getting hot and sweaty as we were hiking up the mountain in all the hot layers and in uncomfortable boots and a heavy snowboard. Do you feel bad for me? Okay, so I was being really dramatic. Tyson was being so sweet and trying to make me happy with the situation and offered many times to carry my board. I stubbornly said no and told him just to hurry so we could get the hiking over with! after the 1st peak he said, lets go one more, it will be so much better. we conquer the 2nd peak and I was convinced to hike to the 3rd peak! I have no idea why I agreed, but I figured the snow would be better and less tracked out like he said. So we get there... and the snow is AWFUL! it was so disappointing. but we were snowboarding now and not hiking so i was instantly happy. i was told to follow close so he could show me some cool rocks (He has strange obsession with rocks... he's a landscaper). So i didn't follow as well as i should have and i had to hike back up to him to find him with his board off of his feet and on top of these awesome cliffs that were looking out over the whole backside. It was awesome. He brushed off a tree and got on a knee and pulled out the ring. In the tree he had intricately carved "will you marry me" in the branch. it was amazing. he has quite the wood carving skills! I got teary eyed and said, "aren't you going to put the ring on me?!" so excited to finally see the ring! then he reminded me that i hadn't his question. I said yes of course and we took pictures and snowboarded down. i was so happy and exctited! 

Then the wedding planning came... but it didn't get that much attention because i had school and graduating to worry about! School was sooo busy, but i got through it and i graduated! I didn't get to see Tyson as much as I wanted, and sometimes i'd go days without seeing or talking to him because i had so much to do, but he was so supportive. 

School ended and we were right off to Mexico with my family! I didn't even get to go to my own graduation, but Mexico beats that. Tyson even brought me his cap and gown to Mexico so we could reenact the graduation i missed. 

Graduation on the beach

Tyson was even nice enough to create this picture, so I didn't feel left out that I didn't get to take graduation pictures with friends and family!

Look familiar? look above at Tyson's graduation pic...

What a pleasant surprise this gem of a picture was! I couldn't stop laughing. Well it's history from there... We planned the wedding all summer and got married July 21, 2011. it was such a perfect day! and Hopefully, when that post comes, it won't be as long as this one! I didn't even know we had a story to tell... but 4 hours later, tyson is asleep on the couch next to me... with his pants on. Well congratulations if you made it this far. Sorry to put you to sleep. Goodbye!