Memories

November and Thanksgiving always bring back memories of the homecoming of Elder Staples serving a mission in Londrina, Brazil from November 1999-2001. Most of our photos are still being stored in Utah, but I found a few in a photo album. I'll have to add more photos to this post at a later time.

When I first opened a blog account back in 2008, I had every intention of scanning in all the photos from the dinosaur age before digital cameras. I wanted to start from the beginning of our story and make a chronological account of our little family. Obviously that hasn't happened and now two years later, I've decided to attempt this challenge again. Now that we are so far away from family and friends, I figured having a blog would be even more fun for everyone to see what we are up to.

Moving to Arizona and now California, we have met and made a lot of great friends and hope that continues. Of course in meeting new people the question of "Where are you from?" and "How did you meet?" get asked quite frequently. Most don't know where little Delta, Utah is on a map even after explaining. But after we tell them that we have known each other since middle school, dated in high school, survived two years of writing letters during Ryan's mission, engaged the day after he got home, and married two months later. Well, it usually makes for good conversation with lots of questions.

The engagement and proposal part is a little fuzzy for Ryan to recall, however, I remember it like it was yesterday. I rode to the airport with the Staples' clan to pick Ryan up from the airport the day after Thanksgiving. We wrote each other faithfully for the entire two years he was serving and become very close through letters and knew we would get married. I was very excited and nervous to see him, I had thought about that day the entire two years he was gone. Surprisingly, his parents let us ride together in the back seat of the Suburban from Salt Lake City to Delta, even though he wasn't released yet. There was a big empty space on the seat between us. We didn't talk much, guess we didn't feel the need to. We just looked at each other the entire way home. When we pulled into town we drove straight to the Stake President's home, so he could be released. The family stayed in the car and Rod and Ryan went in. He came out of President Corey's house, climbed into the back seat where I was and scooted right over to my side and put his arms around me. At his house he gave us all souvenirs from Brazil and he opened his belated birthday presents from everyone. We then went to visit my family.

The next day was our first date. Ryan called me while he was changing flights at the airport in Chicago at 3 or 4 AM and he scheduled in our first date for Saturday night on his weekly mission planner. That should have been my first indication of how that date would turn out. We watched the Light Parade on Main in front of RC Staples and then went to the movie (Monsters Inc.). After the show we headed back to his house where a few friends were waiting to see him and our moms were preparing food for the luncheon after his homecoming address in Sacrament meeting the next day. We escaped down to his room through the back yard and back door because he wanted to talk. As we are sitting in his room, he starts asking me some questions that resembled a conversation a missionary might have with an investigator wanting to be baptized. He used the commitment pattern on me and asked me to marry him. No ring, no romance, but of course I said YES! We decided to wait and tell everyone at the luncheon. We went upstairs and visited with friends and family like nothing had happened. That night was impossible to sleep. I was sleeping in the same room as my sister Tara and in the middle of the night I woke her up and told her I was engaged, and had her promise not to tell anyone. I could finally sleep after that, but then she said she was up the rest of the night. We announced our engagement at the luncheon like planned, there were some shocked faces. Family had already made some bets on when we might get engaged. Christmas, New Years, Valentine's Day. No one guessed it would happen that soon. We had a short engagement of two months. Ryan did propose again with a ring on top of the Dixie Look-out with a lot more romance than the first time. We were married in the St. George Temple on January 31, 2002.