There were still a couple of months of that winter semester left after Thomas got home. Each weekend we would spend together - either in Rexburg or Blackfoot.
The first weekend we went to a rodeo in Pocatello. A weekend or so later, we found ourselves on the lawn of a church by Smith Park trying to do my world religions homework. (I say "we" because it took two of us to get my homework done with all of the new distractions in my life.) After a few minutes of silence, I softly said, "I like solitaire". "Solitaire?" he replied...and I just nodded. Moments later a flash of lightening brightened up the over cast sky and rain drops started coming down.
We quickly gathered up the books and papers and jumped in the Rav4. I told him to turn left and drive up the temple hill so we could watch the storm come in. We parked across the street from the temple's construction site and quietly watched the lightening and clouds move over the town and through the valley. We talked quietly about the temple and families and goals. Neither of us came out and said exactly what we were thinking. We both knew at that point that we were going to get married.
Just a few days later we were talking on the phone one night and I blurted out, "You know we're going to get married, right?" I'm not sure where it came from...but he started laughing. It was finally out in the open and I couldn't be more relieved. It was funny how we could talk about anything and everything, but we never actually said the words, we just talked right through them.
Either that weekend or the next, he picked me up and we headed to the Idaho Falls mall to look at rings. I don't know why, but I was extremely nervous. I knew that I wanted to marry this wonderful man, but actually doing something about it was so exciting that I scared myself! We parked and as Thomas started getting out, I said, "wait." I said nothing else, but the tears started coming. I had no explanation for it, I just didn't want to go inside. After some consoling and convincing, we went in and wandered the jewelry stores, but I was still so shaken up that I didn't look at anything seriously and rushed our way through all of them.
Once we got back outside I asked him if we could go up to Rexburg so I could show him some that I had seen previously. (The week before he came home from his mission, my roommate Summer took me to a diamond place in Rexburg to casually look at what was out there. It was there that I realized my love for solitaire rings.)
I felt really bad that I had let my emotions take control of me on what should have been a joyous occasion. I was still timid and somewhat sad at myself when we got to the diamond place in Rexburg, the same place I had gone before. As we looked around, Thomas quickly caught on to the simple, classic, solitaire style that I liked. At one point he asked, "what about this one?"...and that was it! That's all it took! I loved it.
April came, the semester ended, and I moved back home to Blackfoot. One of the first weekends, we took a day trip to Utah...just the two of us. I was very excited to finally take him to Coalville, a promise I had made to myself four years earlier if we ended up together. I introduced him to Judd Lane and gave him the tour of my childhood memories there. Next we drove to Provo, where he showed me the place he lived while he attended BYU. We walked part of the campus and explored the city.
On the way home that evening, we stopped at temple square. We wandered around a bit and then sat down behind the Joseph Smith building on a bench near the trickling water. It had been a wonderful day and I wondered if it would end with a very important question. Come to find out he was ready and prepared to do it, but the timing just wasn't right...
I felt really bad that I had let my emotions take control of me on what should have been a joyous occasion. I was still timid and somewhat sad at myself when we got to the diamond place in Rexburg, the same place I had gone before. As we looked around, Thomas quickly caught on to the simple, classic, solitaire style that I liked. At one point he asked, "what about this one?"...and that was it! That's all it took! I loved it.
April came, the semester ended, and I moved back home to Blackfoot. One of the first weekends, we took a day trip to Utah...just the two of us. I was very excited to finally take him to Coalville, a promise I had made to myself four years earlier if we ended up together. I introduced him to Judd Lane and gave him the tour of my childhood memories there. Next we drove to Provo, where he showed me the place he lived while he attended BYU. We walked part of the campus and explored the city.
On the way home that evening, we stopped at temple square. We wandered around a bit and then sat down behind the Joseph Smith building on a bench near the trickling water. It had been a wonderful day and I wondered if it would end with a very important question. Come to find out he was ready and prepared to do it, but the timing just wasn't right...
(Not taken that day, but this is the bench we sat on that evening.)
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