We drove up to Temple Square that day. Now, we were both obviously very anxious about the impending proposal. Every time we sat down or Chris looked at me I expected him to pop the question. The funny thing was we were surrounded by brides. It was spring break and wedding parties were EVERYWHERE. The temple grounds were dotted with big white dresses. There were brides in sneakers and brides in bare feet. There were brides kissing and brides laughing and brides being photographed and nervous parents fussing over details and photographers everywhere you looked. It intimidated the heck out of my man. You see, every time we sat down or he looked at me he was about to propose, but then the second he opened his mouth a bride would come around the corner and steal out spotlight. We went the entire day with no proposal.
We were meeting another friend of mine at Temple Square that day and the plan was for me to go home with her for the next few days. She picked me up and when she asked me how I was I said, “I think I’m engaged.” The time passed in a haze because that was all I could think about.
When I got back to my dorm on Saturday night Chris picked me up and we drove over to his grandparent’s house to catch a late movie. As soon as we opened the door, Grandpa came running with arms wide open and crowed, “Welcome to the family!”
He gave me a big hug while Chris hissed through clenched teeth, “I haven’t asked her yet!”
“You two can’t pull the wool over my eyes! I know what’s going on here!”
Chris looked totally defeated. I just about fell down the stairs from laughing so hard.
The next day Chris was bringing me over for Sunday dinner. I had an inkling that he would propose (I wonder why). We drove past the main entrance to the Manti temple, the place where we both wanted to get married. I expected him to drive up and stop, but he didn’t. The poor guy was trying very hard to be suave and everyone was spoiling his romantic plans. As he passed the main entrance I figured he would drive up the back way, which is exactly what he did. He took me out of the car, sat me on a boulder and proposed asking if I would honor him and his family name and be his wife. Of course I said yes.
He then told me that he knew he better do it before he brought me home for a family dinner or he’d be forced to do it right there in front of everyone, which was true. As soon as we arrived we were bombarded on every side, and the wedding plans began.
Posted by Lou on November 28, 2007 @ 1:18 pm | 10 Comments
Parts 1, 2, 3. . .
The following week marked spring break, a season in Utah marked by blooming flowers, no classes and people getting engaged so fast it’ll make your head spin. Being an out of state student in a tiny town who had never set foot in Utah before being dropped off there for college, I had nothing to do and no car to do it with. So Chris proposed that he take me up to Temple Square to see the sites and that we spend a few days there.
Because we are very goodie two shoes, straightlaced Mormons, we arranged to have me stay at a friend’s house in Provo while Chris stayed with his friends. The next morning my friend dropped me off at Tyler and Amber’s place where Chris was. Tyler was in class at the time and Chris was in the shower. Amber practically jumped me. She immediately began to assess the depth and future of our then three week old relationship. She asked me if Chris and I had talked about marriage, and I said that we had but not seriously. The conversation then turned to less threatening topics, which was a relief.
The second my husband to be stepped out of the bathroom Amber pounced and giddily said, “Let’s go ring shopping!” Chris and I were shocked. He was wondering what the heck I had told Amber. You see, his ultimate plan had been to ditch me with Amber and go ring shopping with Tyler, but he hadn’t shared that with anyone. It was supposed to be a surprise. I was in shock, but trying not to look like I cared too much either way because I didn’t want to scare him off, but I didn’t want him to think that I was opposed to the idea. Amber gleefully dragged us out the door.
She took us to what is probably the fanciest, most expensive ring store in all of Utah. There wasn’t a ring there that wasn’t set in platinum and I don’t recall seeing anything less than a carat on display. I watched Chris go white reading the $20,000 price tags and I kept thinking, “Isn’t that like a down payment on a house?” Thankfully, it was time to go pick up Tyler from his class, and so we left the ridiculously posh jewelry store.
When we picked up Tyler and explained, much to his surprise, what we were doing, he suggested that he take us to the jewelry shop that he had purchased Amber’s ring in. He drove us to the Orem mall.
A few months earlier I had been at this mall with a guy I dated casually when I had been stopped dead in my tracks by a beautiful wedding dress in a display window. I had no serious relationship at the time and no intention of wedding any time in the near future, but when I saw that dress my heart skipped a beat. I have never been the kind of girl who read through bride magazines and planned lavish fairy tale weddings; I had never had my head turn over a cake or a ring or a dress, but this dress was perfection. It was modest and simple in design, but with intricate details that resembled vintage trim. I was absolutely breathless, and I said, “I hope that dress is around when I get married.” The ring shop Tyler took us to was directly across the hall from this dress shop.
Chris and I began to look at rings. He gravitated toward thicker bands and massive rocks, while I favored much more delicate settings. However, in both of the ring stores we had visited, I didn’t see a single ring that made me want to wear it for the rest of my life. Chris and Tyler were sitting down to talk to the jeweler and he shooed me down to the other end of the store. I sat down in front of a ring display and there it was, the most lovely, delicate setting for a ring that I had ever seen. The engagement and wedding bands intertwined gracefully and the wedding band held four smaller stones around the center engagement stone. The edges twisted between smooth and brushed gold. I asked the sales girl to show the ring to Chris and tell him that I wanted something along these lines. Apparently she knew the look on my face because when she quietly brought the ring to my almost-fiancé she said, “This is it. This is the ring. If it isn’t this ring, she’s not going to say yes.” I didn’t hear what she said, but needless to say, Chris was taken aback! He leaned over toward me and said, “I thought you wanted white gold,” which I did. The jeweler immediately confirmed that he had the same set in white gold, and it was done.
Chris then handed me a five dollar bill and told me to go look around and get something to drink. He did not want the entire surprise spoiled, and I know after what the salesgirl said he didn’t want me there telling him to get a huge diamond!
Kicked out of the store with Amber I decided that I might as well go over to the dress shop and see if that gorgeous wedding gown was still there. It was, and it fit like it was made for me. It really was perfect. I took down the information on the dress for later. How many women can say they tried on their wedding dress while their boyfriend was buying their engagement ring?
Well, we caught up with the guys about a half an hour later. Chris was in shock. He had just emptied his bank account, and his surprise was pretty much ruined. I was very much on edge.
Part 5 Tomorrow! 
Posted by Lou on November 27, 2007 @ 3:18 pm | 5 Comments
Today I took a good look at Jonas in line at Kindergarten. He is one of the shortest kids in his class. He can’t really help it; neither Chris or I are very tall, although we both have these massive, canoe-like feet that our pediatricians used to examine and make statements about like, “This child is going to be six feet tall someday!” It never happened. We both grew up to be Hobbits and now we are raising our Hobbit children.
Seeing how short he was also brought back a very sharp memory from grade school (one that remains so vivid probably because it is brought up at every family gathering I attend-and a few I don’t, I dare to guess). I was in second grade and we had height and weight day in gym class. It was a big deal to be the biggest or the smallest, the heaviest or the lightest. There was no stigma attached to any label, just the fact that you got to be the “est” of anything was very cool.
Now, the gym teachers were always very careful to give the old lecture on how these results were private and nobody’s business, which, to a room of seven year olds couldn’t have made the information spread faster. Within minutes of the examinations we all swapped numbers until we had everyone in a row, tallest to shortest, fattest to skinniest. Being little kids, we all really wanted to look bigger, so those labeled tallest were, in our eyes, pretty cool. I was no where near the tallest. In fact, I won the opposite award. I was not disappointed though, because I had trumped the others in another way.
I was very, very proud to announce to my parents at the dinner table that night, “I’m the shortest, but I weigh the most!”
Posted by Lou on September 7, 2007 @ 11:00 am | 13 Comments
My parents put my childhood dog, Lizzy, to sleep yesterday.
She was almost 13 years old and her health was failing; my parents put her down right before things really got bad- so she didn’t really suffer much.
This was seriously the best dog ever. She was a gorgeous English Springer Spaniel who we rescued when her owner died from cancer. She was so friendly and sweet. She slept with me every night when I was a kid- and when I left for college- she didn’t know where to sleep.
She was super protective and loyal to me. Once when my little brother and I were play fighting he lunged at me and she bit him in the butt!
She would also sit at my feet adoringly and listen to me sing whenever I had to practice for a competition. Sometimes she would sing along.
She always cared more about her people than about herself. One time my brother was rollerblading and Lizzie was running around with him and she got hit by a vehicle that just sped away. My little brother freaked out and crashed on his roller blades and Lizzie ran over and checked on him, on a BROKEN FOOT. Even though she was really hurting- she had to make sure he was alright.
My mom says that in the past few weeks Lizzie had looked like she was in pain, and she’s almost completely incontinent. But, every time she thought that you were looking at her she would sit up and look as happy as she could and wag her tail- but when she thought you looked away she would relax, tired and in pain. Her “job” was to make everyone else happy, and she took it seriously.
Yesterday morning, amid all the chaos of Jonas’ birthday party and people coming over, I had the urge to go look at her picture, even though I had no idea that it was her last day. My mom says maybe that was Lizzie’s gentle way of saying, “Remember me.” I know I always will.
Posted by Lou on June 18, 2007 @ 1:22 pm | 4 Comments
I was popular in high school. The thing was, I had no idea. For someone so bright, I often look back and find a lot of amusement from my own naivete. Years after the fact I will realize that so and so really was crushing on me, or come to the sudden realization of what a dirty joke meant. I was very wrapped up in my own little world as a teenager, and stuff like popularity kind of went over my head.
I never made homecoming court and I sure as hell wasn’t a cheerleader. I’ve never had the best fashion sense, and my hair, well, it is what it is. I wasn’t rich, and there were a lot of people who were popular who I looked at with a great deal of exasperation. I was more at home chatting with my teachers than my peers, and much more likely to be working at a part time job than attending a football game. I thought pep rallies were a huge waste of precious time. I was not the quintessential definition of popular, so it never occurred to me that I’d qualify until a few weeks before graduation.
It wasn’t until my senior prom, when I was standing in line waiting to show off my dress ( I wore a muumuu because I think most prom dresses are slutty and overpriced) when people who I had never seen before kept coming up to me and complimenting me on my dress and making small talk- small talk using my name and details about me. Small talk that revealed that these people totally knew who I was. I stood there in shock as it hit me, “I’m popular. How weird is this?”
Now, I had always been very involved. I was in show choir, choir, newspaper, drama, AP classes, church classes, lit club and more. I was well known, and generally liked and respected. I dated a nice guy, and I had good friends. Generally, I was nice to people. I guess I was a more visible member of my graduating class then your average student. It made sense that people could recognize me, but it didn’t fail to weird me out.
In the next few weeks I observed and discovered that people, particularly sophomore girls who I didn’t know were divided into two categories.
A) People who liked me and wanted to be my friend and could recall exactly what I’d written in my last newspaper column or the last solo I had in choir, or
B) people who knew all this stuff and hated me because I was dating Jake, who was, unbeknownst to me, the heartthrob of the sophomore class.
I found this information both creepy and hilarious. I can distinctly recall walking by a group of fifteen year old girls, loaded with angst and hatred glaring at me and muttering about how I was dating Jake, and how they despised me. Their immaturity struck me as incredibly funny because neither the guy I was dating or myself were in the least bit pretentious or preoccupied with the high school who’s who. We were far to busy dancing, rehearsing, studying or panicking about AP exams to even notice most of these younger students. It wasn’t snobbery, we were busy. We had better things to do. And so I laughed, and moved on.
I occasionally wonder what these people are doing now, and what they would think if they knew that this, like, so totally popular person spent her morning cleaning up after two adorable children who cracked eggs on the kitchen floor this morning, and then made mac ‘n cheese for lunch. I am still me. I am still busy, and I still fail to notice much outside my immediate circle of concerns. I know I haven’t lived up to the expectations of many who knew me back then. I didn’t grow up to have many educational accolades and a successful career. I grew up to do exactly what I wanted exactly when I wanted to do it, and I have no regrets. I am still me, popular or not. It boils down to the fact that everyone, at some point or another, has to learn to live with themselves, and other’s expectations have to take a backseat to what you need to be happy. It’s a lot easier to live with yourself if you like who you are, and I do. I have plenty of quirks and issues that prove both problematic and entertaining, but on a whole, I like me. Popularity has nothing to do with it.
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Find out which perfect prom gowns and prom shoes best suits your personality by browsing through our prom advice section.
Posted by Lou on November 12, 2006 @ 11:36 am | 4 Comments
Several years ago, when I was about fourteen, I joined the school swim team. I did this because people kept badgering me to do something athletic, and I have always enjoyed swimming, so I figured it couldn’t be too bad.
I found out very quickly that what I enjoyed doing in the water was not swimming. I enjoyed splashing around, jumping off of docks and swimming about three yards at a time. I liked the water, not the exercise. This enlightenment notwithstanding, I decided to give this swim team thing my all anyway. I did laps for three to four hours a day, for several weeks until my body was more toned than it has ever been, and I had developed deep, dark circles under my eyes due to the over work. I started eating everything in sight, because that much swimming truly works up an appetite. I even bought the team swimsuit two sizes too small, because it was the aerodynamic thing to do. I shaved my legs more in those few months than I think I have the rest of my life. I slapped the edge of the pool and screamed my lungs out in encouragement to my fellow team members at our meets, even though they really couldn’t hear me from under water anyway. I even got naked twice a day in a locker room filled with other women! In short, I totally played the part, and I think I was fairly convincing, up until it was my turn to race.
Something interesting about me is that although I love to win, and I thrive on being “the best”, I don’t thrive on competition. Actually, let me rephrase that with a little more honesty: I am completely chickenshit when it comes to competition. My legs quiver, my mouth goes dry and I just pray to get through it without making a total fool of myself. Most of the time, I don’t even care about doing well, I just want to live through it. My first race was no exception.
As I took the starting block, my mother was in the stands cheering me on. To fully understand the rest of this story, it should be noted that at the beginning of every race some yells, “Ready!” and then there is a loud, electronic “BWAAAAMMM,” which stands for “get set”(lean over and put your butt in the air so you are ready to dive off of the block), and then someone fires the gun which means, “get in the water and start swimming”.
My mother watched me shivering on the starting block. The guy said “ready”, and I was. Then that buzzer went off and scared the living daylights out of me, and I fell off the block and into the pool. The person behind my mother commented to a friend, “wow, she’s nervous,” as I climbed out of the pool and got back into position, dripping wet, and very shaken.
Once again, the guy hollered, “ready”, and then the buzzer screeched loudly, and I, once again, fell off my block, into the pool, in fright. The commentator behind my mother said, “wow. She’s really nervous!” My mother, who hadn’t publicly admitted that she was the mother of the soggy ball of nerves climbing back onto the block for the third time, had to agree.
This time, I prepared myself better. After all, falling in once was understandable, twice, humiliating, but a third time, well, a third time would be just inexcusable. This time when the buzzer sounded, I held on to the block with a death grip, and when the gun went off, I left my block a good two seconds after the rest of the competitors, for fear of falling in again. I was so flustered I ended up being disqualified because my foot scraped the bottom of the pool during one of my laps, so an auspicious beginning, it wasn’t.
Needless to say, I didn’t last long on the swim team. Oh, I had a few good races (mostly the short, relay races where the win didn’t depend entirely on me), but on a whole, I was losing weight and beginning to look just plain sick from all of the exercise. After being encouraged by several teachers, family and friends to quit, I did. And I didn’t miss it at all.
Posted by Lou on June 13, 2006 @ 5:42 pm | 6 Comments
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