From This Moment On

Can you believe it has been 9 years today since Justin and I were sealed for time and all eternity in the Oakland Temple? My life has been so blessed by having him as my husband and by the children we have added to our family. I will try to not get too mushy on my blog. Yesterday I got tagged by my cousin Kassi and appropriately enough, it was about me meeting Justin, so here are my answers. I love you Justin!

1.Where did you and your husband meet?
Surprisingly, we met in good ol' Brentwood, CA at my parent's house. One interesting side note—we both grew up in Fremont and knew all the same people, yet never crossed paths. There were times we even went to the same building for church. We met through a mutual friend, Steve Dryden, during our summer break from school. After hanging out for a couple of weeks, Justin asked me out, and things went pretty quickly from there. Within a few weeks of dating, we knew we wanted to get married and even started looking at rings. I secretly bought a couple of bridal magazines to read on the trip back to Utah.

2.First thing you said to each other...
I don't really remember the details of our first conversation, so I will write about the first time we told each other, “I love you.” About 2 weeks into dating, we were out hiking at Castle Rock and Justin took me to this secluded area away from the other hikers and that is where he told me he loved me. I was ecstatic and told him I loved him too. I still get butterflies thinking about it!

3.Where did you go on your first date?
Our first date was to Brendan Theater in Pittsburg to see Armageddon. I rushed home from work at Safeway to shower and wash my hair (just in case he got close enough to smell it!). We held hands the entire movie. I was so nervous, that to this day, I can't remember what that movie was about. I came home and told my sister, Jill, that this was the man I was going to marry.

4.Where was your first kiss?
Justin asked me on our second date a few days later after a day of rock climbing at Mt. Diablo State Park. I managed to wow him with my impressive rock climbing skills by making it up the climb in record time. To this day, I swear it was our future children pushing me up because I am TERRIFIED of heights and get sweaty palms just thinking about what I did. We went to play laser tag at Q-ZAR and ate dinner at the Spaghetti Factory. I didn't eat one piece of bread with garlic butter (which is my favorite there) for fear of bad breath later on. It was a good thing, because after dinner we went over to watch a band play at the gazebo of Todos Santos Plaza and ended up making out. It was AMAZING! He claims I tackled him first, but we both know he made the first move :) (at least I think he did!)

5.Long or short courtship/engagement?
We started dating mid-July of 1998, got engaged on Saturday, October 24, 1998, and married Saturday, March 13, 1999. The engagement was longer than either of us liked (thanks to my mom and dad) and I highly recommend short engagements.



6.Where did you get engaged?
Justin proposed up at Aspen Grove in Provo Canyon. We were supposed to be going up there for a camp fire with our friends. When we got there, no one was in sight. He led me over to the outdoor stage area where he had candles and flowers set up. It took me a second to get what was happening. He got down on one knee and asked me to be his wife. All of our friends were up there hiding in the trees watching and came out once he had proposed to celebrate with us.

7.Where were you married?
We were married in the Oakland California LDS Temple.


8.Where did you honeymoon?
We left the Sunday after our wedding to spend a few days in Seattle, WA and Victoria Island, Canada. We even got to stay at the Empress Hotel in Victoria—our room had 2 bathrooms, 4 phones, and 2 TV's. It was so fun to finally be married!


I tag Ali, Angelia, and Trisha!