Warning: Squishy post. (And then other normal rambles. :p)

(WARNING. This post is illegally long and may take a while to get through. Sorry 'bout that.)

Ok. So I know, I know. My blog is probably like oozing with twitterpatedness and getting a little boring to keep reading about it, but I've had requests for the whole dating love story thing, so I decided to just write it once. :) (Because I'm a total lazy bum like that.)
I met Matt in January when I went back to Snow (which I totally wasn't planning on, since I lost my scholarship and was feelin pretty broke :p but then everything just kept falling into place at the VERY last minute for me to get there, so apparently Heavenly Father had plans. :) ) He was in my ward, so the first sunday I was there and scoping all the new scenery out I decided he was REALLY cute and I should date him. :p And after Sunday school he came up and asked me if I would say the closing prayer in sacrament. I'm sure I was drooling stupidly at that point, but he got my name and smiled and walked off and that was that for the next, oh... two months. Neither of us dared talk to the other! How silly is that? Especially looking back from where we are now. Oh well. :p He was totally known as 'Cute Matt' at my apartment for those two months though. I may or may not have ran into him a couple times on campus between January and March and I may or may not have all but killed myself trying to walk as fast as him so I'd still be ahead of him and he could check me out or come talk to me or something. :p And the time I saw him in the lobby of the library I very well might have gone out of my way to sit in a chair across the room from him and re organize my backpack, and then run to class. Late. :p
Then in March while I was at my cousins wedding I got this super frantic phone call from my roommate telling me I'd never guess who came over looking for me. :) And then the next day (my birthday) Matt showed up while I was half reading half sleeping on my front porch to ask me if I wanted to play Ultimate Frisbee with him. We all know that I'm a total klutz with athletics though, haha so I pulled the 'I have yoga in an hour' excuse. Which I did have, but let's be honest. I sluffed that class more than once. I can't remember if the cupcake fiasco was before that or just after, but Chelsey (my roommate whom I am indebted to forever now ;p) made cupcakes and decided I needed to take them over to Matt. There was at least an hour of her frustratedly trying to make me do it, and me being all freaked out and too shy and 'what if he thinks I'm a moron'-ish before we finally made a note (that was better than Chelsey's version, but still pretty obvious and potentially awkward) saying 'to matt and his roommates from Shannon and apartment 9' or something like that. See? Awkward. Right before we left we found out that the guys were at some priesthood meeting and Chelsey thought we should wait. However, me being so obnoxiously shy jumped on this chance to 'doorbell ditch' the cupcakes to an empty apartment so I wouldn't have to blush and stammer and all that other really impressive stuff.
A weekish later, he pulled strings (since he was the cute ward executive secretary) and came to my apartment for fast offerings. We pretty much NEVER answered the door at my apartment, we just yell 'come in', which he did. And there I am. Sitting there in HUGE sweats with my heaping plate of leftover re-fried beans and a massive burrito. Cute huh. So I'm dying, and he's standing there smiling, and then the next thing I know I'm saying yes to go for a Sunday drive with him in an hour. I scrambled to get ready and extra attractive to make up for the giant (impressive) plate of mexican food and man sweats, and then got changed again to go pick up conference tickets from our bishop (and ran into guess who in the office there) and then awkwardly walked out to my car with him walking behind us to his truck. Seriously, we were possibly the absolute most awkward couple ever. :p Truly. An hour flew by and I had redone my hair at least three times by the time Matt came back to pick me up, and we drove up Ephraim Canyon. Six hours later we had covered nearly every topic and only came back because he had to go home teaching. After that my roommate and I came up with this sneaky double date where we didn't actually tell the guys it was a double date. In our defense we did chicken out last minute and try to invite lots of other people (half heartedly anyway) who couldn't make it so it was still a sneaky double date of cookies and The Lion King. I don't think we actually watched more than ten minutes of it because we  talked the whole time. And after it was over. And until three o clock. I'm pretty sure it was that night that Matt accidentally called me the wrong name(because there was a girl in our ward with the last name Heaps.) He got this wide eye-d, "oh crap" look on his face, so I let him off easy with, "Well, I guess I could forgive you if you gave me ice cream or something really good like that." I promise I told him I was just kidding, and that people called me that all the time in this ward (lies) and he was just fine. Well, the next day as I'm on the phone with my sister telling her about Matt I heard a knock at the door. And my heart went into seizures. Because obviously every knock on the door from then on out would just have to be my Matt. Right? Well, the odds were in my favor (Hunger games anyone?) and my roommate came in freaking out to tell me I had a handsome visitor. So I hung up and went out, totally forgetting that I didn't even do makeup that morning (after a grand total of what. Three hours of sleep?) until I see Matt with his hands behind his back. He brought me ice cream to make up for calling me the wrong name. :p And not just any ice cream, but this dark chocolate, caramel Magnum ice cream. Hello. My name is your future wife, let's go to Vegas? Yes.
After that it was the snowball effect. Lots of walks around town, and late night talks and dinner dates, (all still definitely in the awkward stage of not touching but being as close as possible without touching) and somewhere in all that we had our first kiss at Palisade State park by the little lake under the stars. :) We both knew we really liked each other, and probably had already talked a little about that M word, but we both were kind of worried about the whole time issue. The school year was ending WAY too soon, and long distance stuff is never fun. Or easy. So that's when the really awkward, really forward conversation about "so are we dating or what?" came about. Me, blushing like a mad woman, used sarcasm to cope with feeling SUPER awkward. (What happened to my angsty teenaged ability to talk about exactly how I was feeling??) When he asked if I felt the same way after his profession of crush on me, I maybe retorted with "No, I just invite you over here all the time for fun." Really Shan? Not my brightest moment. So. We decided we were dating (finally. Since we'd been not dating for a little while by then) Finals week flew by with lots of 'quizzing dates' at the library, and basically every spare moment spent together. Our last day in Ephraim we helped each other pack up and clean our apartments, and took a drive up the mountain for a picnic lunch. The rest of the day was saying goodbyes to different friends, and waiting until we absolutely had to leave town. We planned out lots of summertime visits between work schedules, and then said goodbye. I drove out first, and while I was gassing up at the Maverick, he drove past and waved, which is when I maybe totally lost it. The first year when I moved back home I cried pretty much the whole way, but this time was different. I didn't think Matt would just disappear and so I only cried til Sterling. :p The summer went by so much faster than I thought it would! We saw each other a week after we left Snow, and then a week after that... and sometimes it'd be two weeks in between, (which felt like FOREVER mind you,) but we had lots of facetime dates and phone calls. If I wasn't at work or eating or working out I was talking to Matt. In June he came to hang out in Hatch for the weekend and was soo late (from the parental permission asking stuff) and that night we got engaged at the top of Red Canyon! (Here's the engagement story if you wanted that one in detail too :p) Wedding planning nonsense and dying at Bryce Canyon's Visitor Center because we were getting so close but it was taking forever went by (a little slower but still crazy fast) and before we knew it we were meeting up to pick up furniture from his Grandma's house the day before our wedding! Our sealing wasn't scheduled until 2, so the luncheon was before that at 11. Well, of course I didn't sleep at all the night before and of course I woke up at like five that morning. The luncheon was perfect (his family did an amazing job of decorating until midnight or so the night before) and then we headed off to the temple! The bridal room was so beautiful and the temple workers made me feel so special! It was so much fun to have my mom there to help me get ready. So surreal. And then BAM! We were married and taking a million pictures outside in the humid heat. And then BAM! The reception started and we smiled and hugged and thanked people, and cut a cake and danced some dances and then poof! The reception was over! It was such a beautiful day, and it's so funny to see how weird time is. It goes sooo fast for stuff like that!
(Click here for more Ephraim dating stories (and here, and here, and here, and here)  Here for Summer lovins (and here) , and Here for Engaged/Wedding posts. (and here and here, and here)... And this just for that video link.) But anywho. There it is! Then a honeymoon at a cute cabin and moving into our apartment the day before our open house in Cedar and fast forward a month  past group FHE's, cooking for a man adjustments and a sad lack of jobs in Cedar City to now. Next Wednesday marks two months, which is SO crazy considering a year ago I was resigned to accepting that 'my person out there for me' very well may be five cats. Life is good! Heavenly Father definitely knows what He's doing. When I look back over the last year, I can see how everything got was helping me learn and get to where I am now. (Meeting Matt included!) Ah. The sentiment.

So. There it is. Lots of squishy reminiscing for you. But I did promise some 'normal' rambles, and ramble I shall!
The little girl I baby sit is stinkin hilarious  When she's not angry with me for actually saying no to treats every five minutes during 'Clues Clues' and Carebears and other awesome little gems of movies. Yesterday while she was over here she kept asking what "Map" was doing. (which was, of course, homework.) So after a while I just started saying I didn't know, and then asked her the same question. Once after a little bit of thought she smiled and informed me that he was "doing hineywork!!" :p Oh heavens. Seriously, I'm excited to have kids, mainly for the entertainment value. (And all the other, better, reasons too. But not for like two years. Deal?)

Also, for the past two weeks I've had allergies/a cold. Maybe both. Probably both. Definitely both. Sunday Matt sent me home after Sacrament meeting. Later that evening our friends, The Bonds, (Yes. Like Bond. Kyle and Janessa Bond. Sweet, right?) came over with some french bread and chicken noodle soup. The next morning my cute visiting teaching partner had left another can of chicken noodle soup with a note, tied on with purple ribbon. Yes. Purple. Clearly I should get sick more often. It vastly improves our food storage! ;) The good news is I finally went to the doctor and he gave me some steroids to make me buff. Erm. Better. ;) And some antibiotics if my newly acquired muscles get too out of hand. But. Until then I should probably go be productive.