Tuesday, February 23

She wanted a Heart

If you know me well at all, you'll know I LOVE hearts. When Jeff decided he wanted to look at rings, I mentioned to me him that if possible, I'd like to have a heart in the ring. He wasn't sure if there were any, so he wanted to go looking together.
This was fun! We first went to the mall closest to school. That was a mistake! The first place we went to, one of our friends saw us in there! Thankfully, we played it off and went on our merry ways. After that, we headed down to one farther away from campus, rarely visited by college students. We stopped by three places, I think, and looked at several rings. We had a few salespeople try to get us to purchase one, but that wasn't the goal.

Then, we came to the last place. I spotted the heart and showed Jeff. He found a wedding band he liked. We weren't sure how they could fit together but we liked both of them. Jeff said that was what he wanted to get. The salespeople there were so sweet! They thought we found the perfect fit and they found one last piece to make it a perfect ensemble. Jeff loved it and said that was it.

Here's the funny part, he sent me out the door to wait in the mall. He got the ring right then and there. He told me I shouldn't be around when he got it. He put it away and we didn't talk to anyone about getting it or anything. Now, it was just time to finish school and I had to wait for him to decide when to propose!

I was on pins and needles! I couldn't wait to tell our friends! But I couldn't. I wanted to look at wedding dress books and start dreaming again! My roommate actually asked me if we were engaged and I had to figure out how to get around that one. I don't think she ever believed me. ;) Our group of friends kept telling us all that we should just go for it and they all figured we'd be planning the wedding before school was out. For Jeff, talking to the dad was to come first....

That meant a trip home.

Friday, February 19

The First Kiss

(Our Love Story continued...)

We had decided, unofficially, that we definitely wanted to spend the rest of our lives loving each other. We had plans of going ring shopping, but that would come later. We were nearing the end of the school year and we didn't want to announce any sort of engagement before Jeff spoke with my Dad. Well, those were mainly Jeff's feelings, he wanted to talk to Dad before even asking me. I knew my parents approved. But he wanted to be formal! We enjoyed so many wonderful moments together. One walk, (it wasn't anywhere special, just outside the dorms out close to the old gym) as we moved forward, dreaming about our future, I noticed the flowers in the grass. They were tiny, but beautiful! There were what seemed like thousands of these beautiful tiny flowers in the grass, and they were purple. The purple and green together was so vibrant and such a wonderful combination to me. On that day, before we announced any engagement, before the ring was even on my finger, we decided on green and purple for our wedding colors. My dreams were coming true! And they were becoming more and more sweet by the day...

Worship services were great that Sunday morning. I was worshiping my Savior sitting next to the second love of my life {after Christ that is ;) }, I was on a double high!

After church let out, Jeff decided he wanted to take me to Jimmy John's (greatest burger place in the OKC metro!). I loved it! I was excited, giggly, bubbly. We were listening to the radio and one of my favorite songs came on (I'm pretty sure it was Footloose). I was singing along, dancing, just like girls do. Meanwhile, Jeff was talking about something. Finally, he stopped and said he'd finish after the song that I probably hadn't heard a single word he said. I stopped right there and told him no, I had heard it all and repeated back to him word for word what he had said. Never again did he question whether I was listening to him. (wish I could still do that!) His jaw dropped and we had a good laugh out of it.

When we pulled into the parking lot, he sat there and stared at the steering wheel. Then he looked at me. He told me how much he loved everything about me. He loved it when I sang in the car, he loved my silliness, he loved ME! Then he looked at me real seriously, and said, "Sendy, I wanna kiss you bad!" I had wondered why he hadn't kissed me yet, but it wasn't that important to me. There we were, sitting in the parking lot (I still remember what parking space it was - second row back, four spaces in) about to have burgers for lunch, our first kiss!

Tuesday, February 9

An Official Couple

...continued from previous two posts.

OC had movie nights at the local dollar theatre when OC students could get in to see movies for free. These were popular date nights among us poor folks. And this night, Jeff and I took advantage of the free date once again. We saw two movies that night. One of those movies was Shanghai Knights. Crazy movie, but great time! During the movie, all I could think about was this guy sitting next to me. Oh, we both went through those jittery feelings, "what do I do with my hand?" , "will she freak out if I put my arm around her?" , "Oh, his hand's in the popcorn!" It was so fun. I was going crazy! Nothing happened. I think we were both too afraid. When we left the movie, a couple of our friends were in the lobby and so we decided to stay for another movie with them. Same thing for another 90 minutes! Boy, I'll tell you what, by the end of that night, I was exhausted! (well, my emotions were)

That night after Jeff dropped me off at the dorm, I had those conversations with my gal-friends. I came to the conclusion that this was it. I had to talk to him. I had to know what was going on and where we were! So, I called him. My heart was pounding. I'm pretty sure my hands were sweatty and I wanted to hang up. But I didn't. The conversation was pretty short. He answered, and we talked about how much fun we both had. Then I got to the point of why I called. "Jeff, what is this? Where are we? What are we?" What he said next put a huge smile on my face and gave me that giggly feeling that girls get. I never thought I'd hear a guy say this to me! "Um, Sendy, I want you bad."

That was our beginning! We were an official couple! I couldn't believe it! I still can't believe that he chose me to be his forever girl. Our friends all thought it was about time that we called ourselves a couple. I think that the whole time, they all called us one anyway.

This was either at the end of February or beginning of March. The weeks went by and we spent so much time together. We spent hours talking about our future, what each of us wanted in our future. What we envisioned our family life looking like, our religious views, our political views, our likes and dislikes, how many kids we wanted, where we wanted to live, etc. By Spring Break, I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with this man. He drove me to Amarillo to meet up with my dad at the Big Texan (you know that place, with the "free" 72 oz. steak!). We ate lunch there with him and had a great time. I still remember looking at the menu with him and figuring out what we wanted to share, the look in his face. My dad watched us. He knew. We didn't say anything, goodness, we had just started dating!

Later, my mom told me that when we got home that evening, my dad told her that they needed to get ready for another wedding. Ha! My parents even knew this was the man with whom I would spend the rest of my life!

Spring Break was great. I don't remember a lot about what I did while there, probably just hung out at home and found some friends to do something with occasionally. What I do remember, is the conversations I had with my mom. I was talking about wedding stuff and future things in my life. Then, my mom said, this wedding better not be before the end of the year! We laughed. I told her that we weren't even engaged, we had just got together, but that I loved him. I did say that I wasnt' sure if he would even think about proposing anytime soon anyway.

After break, school went so fast. Jeff and I spent a lot of time together solidifying our future dreams together. That was it, together, our plans were melding together. We went on bike rides, tons of walks, and several out-of-town drives. One evening, we were coming out of the student center, it was late and dark. He clasped my hand and held it close to him on his arm. As we walked toward the dorms, he told me he felt like we were an old couple, that he loved thinking about us being old together. I think that was when we decided to spend the rest of our lives loving each other.

That week, we went to the malls and looked at rings. But we had to be strategic. Nobody knew!