It's a Love Story...

In honor of Valentines Day, I thought I would write about how Dan and I got together. I don't know if I've done this before, so if it's a repeat, sorry!

Dan and I first met in June of 2005. I had recently returned from my mission in Italy and had just arrived back in Utah. I had just moved into a new apartment. A few days after moving in, I came home and there were some people in my kitchen for dinner group. He was one of them. I chatted for a minute with them. I remember Dan saying something, but honestly that was it. He on the other hand, thought I was really cute and thought he said something dumb and had totally blown it with me. He actually started dating another girl for a while and I never really saw him much. Fast forward to January of 2006. Dan had broken up with that girl a few months before. One night, after ward prayer, I started talking to him and his friend Rich. Dan mentioned that he was taking an Italian class that semester. I offered to help him if he ever needed it. This was totally innocent. At this time, I wasn't really interested in him. I thought he was nice, but that was it.

Dan on the other hand, was already scheming. He told me that he was deciding between taking Italian and French. Italian worked better with his schedule and then he told me he thought, "Plus, Rachel is really hot, so I could ask her for help." Ha!

So Dan started coming over often to my apartment on the pretense of needing help. When, in reality, he didn't need help at all. He's so sneaky! I on the other hand, didn't suspect a thing. This went on for the entire semester, 4 months. At then end of the semester, my roommates and I decided to go out to dinner to celebrate. Dan came over, a little before we were going to go, and was going to ask me to dinner as a thank you for helping him with Italian. Well, he never got the chance, since we were already going out to eat. He ended up coming with us and I noticed he made sure to sit next to me.

Then, the next weekend, we ended up making tacos for cinco de mayo and watching a movie. This was a kind of hang out date, that wasn't really meant to be a date. Then, a few days later, Dan asked me out. He told me there was supposed to be wind on Friday and we could make dinner and fly some kites. Turns out there was only supposed to be like 6 mph winds, but he didn't specify how much wind! Once again, trying to be tricky.

So that was our first official date. It was fun and we came back to my apartment and watched a movie. We ended up holding hands and cuddling. The next day we hung out a bit, but I had plans for that night. Then Sunday came and I just wasn't sure about my feelings for Dan. I decided that I didn't want to date him and that we should just be friends. Everything happened kind of fast and I just hadn't really thought of him in a dating way, quite yet. I saw him at church, but then didn't see him till that evening, right before ward prayer. However, when he came to my apartment, he looked so cute and there wasn't really time to tell him. Then, I'm not quite sure what happened, but during ward prayer I changed my mind and decided to give him a chance. I think we started holding hands and I decided I liked it and that maybe we could have fun dating.

So, then we started dating. We dated the whole summer. We both just worked the summer and as soon as we got home in the evening, we hung out together. So we spent a lot of time together. As I got to know Dan better, I realized what a good guy he is. He was so kind and sweet. He really showed me a lot of love. He really just swept me off my feet. :)

We decided to get married after 3 1/2 months of dating. At the time, it didn't seem fast at all. In hindsight, it was pretty fast. Something kind of interesting, is after only about 3 weeks of dating, we went to Salt Lake to see the Joseph Smith movie. During the movie, Dan got the very distinct impression that he was going to marry me. He didn't tell me this until we were engaged, which was probably a good idea. :)

So, here we are, 4 1/2 years later. We have two beautiful children, a house, Dan has a good job. We are very blessed. I love Dan so much!