Together Forever

Clynn and I have a pretty different story.
There was no "when did you guys first meet" story for us. 

Allow me to explain.

Clynn and I grew up in the same ward at church. His family met my family when I was three years old, and he was six or seven. We grew up always knowing of each other. He went to school with my big sister, played board games with my big brother, I went to school with his little brother, and my first babysitting job was his little sister.

(Clynn in the upper left, My big sister Kristin in the lower right in the same wretched sunflower dress I wore on my baptism day)

Here's a terrible picture of 13 year old me, my little sister Debbi, and Clynn's little sister Emelia,

 at Clynn's family Halloween party in 2003.

He recalls a time in church when he was sitting in primary, "I was sitting there and it was the first time I realized that the girl I would marry was alive, somewhere, in the world today...little did I know, she was sitting a few rows in front of me."

My very first crush was Clynn. Oh my goodness was he snazy in his Adidas shoes, messy over-styled hair, and popped collar shirts with the sleeves rolled up. Such a Mormon rebel and I was a smitten thirteen year old. <3 He thought I was pretty cool too and a few months later we were holding hands at a youth group 'combined activity'. We went caroling. :)

I understand that that wasn't acceptable to the people who cared about us. He was 17 and a senior in high school and I was in eighth grade. yeeeeaaahhhh......long story short, my Dad wasn't having any of that and I got shipped off to live with my aunt. (A bit drastic, ya think?! Well, we were having some other family issues too. This was just the icing on the cake.)

Oh, boy did I cry. You know the way things make you feel when your 13? I cried and cried and cried because "I would never know what him and I could have had." (I remember saying those words exactly.)

Well, it was a silly 13 year old crush and I moved on.
He thought of me off and on, wondered how I was doing now and again, and moved on from something that wasn't really anything. (However, I now believe Heavenly Father had started on something much greater than we ever could have known.)
As the years passed, I would ask about him as casually as possible, while inquiring about all of his family members, in addition to occasionally stalking his very empty Myspace page.
We were always a very fleeting thought away from each other.

Flash forward four and a half years and my sisters were talking about how they had gone to his coming home party. He was back from his two year mission served in Halifax, Canada.
I remember thinking it was cool he made it all the way through and asked the girls if he was cute. ;)
I then brushed it off and didn't think much of it.

Weeks later, I was visiting my family. My oldest sister was in Iraq and we wanted to celebrate her promotion together. We had bought a cake and my Mom invited all of her childhood friends over to our house to make a video to send to her. In the video, you can see me in sweats, with my hair in a pony tail and no makeup. Then, I get word that Clynn is one of her friends coming over. I disappear in the video for a while and magically reappear in jeans, sleek straight hair, and makeup all done. Weird, hu?!?? Such a coincidence...
With Kristin's friends over we all caught up. Had a fun time talking about Kristin's crazy adventures and what everyone was up to. Clynn and I maybe exchanged three sentences...but lots of glances.

Now flash forward another month.

I was staying with my Mom for a couple weeks to catch up before I took off to basic training and AIT.
I wanted to soak up all the little sister time I could before being away for six months!
(The upcoming story is the one we tell people if we want to give the short version of "how we met" as this is when our relationship rekindled at an appropriate time.)
New years eve my Mom convinced me to go to a singles ward dance in Seattle with a group of young adults from her ward. I went to seminary with most of them for a few months my Freshman year...so they weren't complete strangers. It took only a few minutes to realize I had nothing in common and didn't fit in with this bunch. I was in the process of avoiding a weird red headed kid stalking me and trying not to be the weird wheel in this group when I saw Clynn walk through a crowd with a couple of his friends.
I was sooo relived to see a more familiar face. I walked up to him and gave him a hug and told him what was going on; stuck there with people I didn't know being stalked by a weirdo I already awkwardly danced with...twice...
We chated and danced a couple times. The defining moment was when it was time to go out to the space needle for the countdown and fireworks. He offered me his hand to lead me outside as I was putting on my jacket. I took it and he didn't let go when we got where we were going. (No, he didn't kiss me at midnight....that would have been a bit much, though I'm sure we both thought about it.) He held my hand though the fireworks and we walked back inside together. As we were wrapping up the night the kid who had been stalking me walked up. He started showing me all these pictures of fireworks on his phone as the music started up for the last dance. Clynn wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled me in closer to him and put out his other hand saying "Hi, I'm Clynn" to the guy who had been following me all night. Needless to say, he backed off. We had a good laugh and he asked me for the last dance. (Retelling the story...I feel a little bad for that kid...but if you've ever been to a Mormon dance and had 'that one guy who can't take a hint' experience...you'll understand...still feel kinda bad though...)
At the end of the dance we exchanged numbers and I told him we should hang out some time.
We then went on a date exactly every other day until I took off to training. He promised to write and the last night on my parent's front porch was a moment I relived every day of those six months I was away. How we said we'd miss each other, how we said "I really really like you" a million times because it was too early to say "I love you", the way he kissed me goodbye/goodnight, turned to walk away, and then came back for one last kiss. (That has gone down in history as his "famous double take".)

The awful picture Clynn took the night we said goodbye for the first time.

Aaaaaand now it's time to go into summary mode because the beginnings took forever.

He wrote me while I was away. Broke up with me once. Was so impressed by my response to his "dear Jane" that he changed his mind. We got back together pretty much the night I got my phone back the night before Basic Graduation. He told me he loved me in Juneish which followed by the first time he ever heard me cuss...lol....lucky I didn't lose him again then. I realized I loved him back the beginning of August. He came to my AIT graduation where I told him I loved him at a country dance club in San Antonio, Texas. I had to mouth it straight to his face because the music was so loud. Pretty much the cutest thing ever. <3

Five months later, he proposed to me on the roof of his parents house when we were in the middle of a disagreement. (I'll elaborate on that later.)

We were married on May 7, 2011. (All prime numbers...)

The first and last boy to ever make me cry.

We have now been married three and a half years 

and the whole adventure has been pretty epic.

Year One

Year Two

Year Three

Year Four (Welcome Baby W!)

And, for now, that's pretty much the story of us. <3
It is by no means a flawless fairy tail. It's actually kind of weird and if you think about it too much can leave a weird taste in your mouth. But it's the truth. and it's our story.
and I love it.