It's September 2007. I was meeting the new cadets in Air Force ROTC and making sure I had names straight. This was my second and last year of being a "lower classman" and I wanted to make sure I did everything to make my flight as close knit as possible. Turns out, I'd be knit pretty close with one of them less than a year later...
This is one of Mitch's favorite memories of me before we were dating (notice him sitting at the table). Little E was soo cute and Mitch said he liked seeing this side of me.
Now it's Winter Semester 2008. Mitch often called me to come help last-minute with lowering the flag on BYU campus, even though Drill Team (Kadi) and Color Guard (Mitch) had a friendly rivalry. Occasionally, he'd give me a ride back to my apartment in his car, which was a huge luxury - I think he felt bad for calling me so often. ;)
Our catalyst came in the form of a mutual friend, Megan. She and I had gone country dancing at a local place in Provo and decided to invite some of our cadet friends. Mitch and one other cadet showed up, but after an hour, it was just Mitch, Megan and I. Megan was a great dancer so she had tons of partners, but me... not so much. I thought Mitch was just taking pity on me by dancing with me so often (he says he'd had a crush on me since the previous September). Warm fuzzies that night. :) We tried to repeat the activity the next week but Mitch and I were the only ones who showed up - that was our unofficial first date.
Fast forward a few weeks to Dining Out in March 2008. I'd been dropping hints that I wanted Mitch to ask me out, but he'd already asked one of the girls in his ward by the time he found out I didn't have a date. So I had the lamest of all lame dates but being in charge of the grog was AWESOME!
Me and the grog in the grog bowl - yes, it's bright green. Hehehe...
Mitch sent me a text asking how my date had gone but -dun dun DUUUN!! - I didn't have texting on my phone. So Mitch calls two days later on Monday to ask for a Wednesday date. I was shocked and stunned in a good way. Mitch wasn't the first guy I dated, but I was really excited for this date. Wednesday rolls around and Mitch takes me to Chili's for dinner. Yum. Then we went for a walk around the bell tower and the tunnel by the Marriott center. As we were reached the street above the bell tower, Mitch grabbed my hand to pull me across the street... and didn't let go. He'd grabbed it at kind of an awkward spot (more fingers than hand) but I wasn't really sure what was happening was actually happening. All kinds of awkward conversation follows while the two of us tried to figure out the other's thoughts. Haha! Such an awkward moment. Neither of us pulled away (or wanted to end the date), so we went back to Mitch's apartment to watch a movie. Luckily, his roommates were just starting Ratatouille, so we settled down to watch that... still holding hands. :)
We dated for a couple weeks and then approached the ROTC commander to make sure that he knew we were dating, just to be on the safe side. ROTC has strict rules for dating within the corps (first and second years can't date third or fourth years without permission - long story). We were well within that rule (both of us were second years) but still, just wanted to be on the safe side. Little did we know that we would be back in just two short weeks....
After we'd been dating about three weeks, Mitch and I met some of his friends at Thai Ruby for lunch. I had been planning on serving an 18 month church mission that fall and Mitch had totally blindsided me. While we were sitting in the car fixing to go inside, I asked him where he thought we would be in 6 months because if this wasn't going anywhere, I wasn't going to waste my time (or his)... and he said "married." My jaw dropped, but boy was he right.
General Conference April 2008 - 2 weeks before the proposal
So, back to Col. Jacobs we went to see if there were any hoops to jump through so we could get married. Luckily, there were none and we got the green light.
Mitch proposed April 19th in a wonderfully surprising dinner date. He told me he had reservations at a "nice restaurant" in town (never mentioned the name) and planned to pick me up around 4:30 that Thursday. Well, 4:30 rolls around and he started calling every 20 minutes to ask for 20 more minutes... until he arrived at around 6 pm. With a single rose. :) Needless to say, I forgave him. He helped me into the car and then mentioned that he forgot his wallet and could we please go back to his apartment to pick it up? I was just happy to be with him, so I said yes and, when we entered his apartment, I was sooo glad I'd said yes! He had a table set for two with two tall lit candles and another single rose in a little vase. Surprise!! This was the nice restaurant and boy was it ever! Mitch had cooked up some orange chicken and mixed a salad, then we had sherbet for dessert and then Mitch started clearing away the table and pushing the couches against the wall. He turned on some country music and recreated our first date. After a few songs, we decided to go for a walk around the bell tower. Now, I should pause here and tell you that my roommate Milla and I had come up with a little bet. She bet me that Mitch would propose to me after 8:30 that night and I humored her and said he'd propose before 8:30. K, so back to the bell tower. When we got to the observation deck of the bell tower, we watched the sun set and the birds flying around while we held hands. I had taken to wearing my old CTR ring on my left hand when I was by myself, but I had forgotten to switch hands that night. Mitch laughed when he discovered a ring on that particular finger, but then said he wanted to get me a better one. I agreed and said that we'd go looking for rings soon, but then he got down on one knee and it gets a little fuzzy from there. He asked me to marry him and I kind of lost my power of speech for a minute. Remember, I wasn't expecting him to propose until we got back to Texas! He had to prompt me for an answer (which I quickly gave) and then slipped the little two-tone opal ring on my hand. As he stood to kiss me, the bell tower chimed 8:30. I'd won the bet!! By about 90 seconds, but still, what an awesome date!! We were both so happy and so relieved that it had finally happened. We hadn't planned on making a big deal out of it, but the following Sunday during the good news minute in Relief Society, Milla raised her hand and said that her good news minute was that I had gotten engaged. Almost nobody knew that I had been dating, let alone who, but it was kind of fun to be the center of attention for a few minutes. All my friends in the ward found me in the next couple days to see the ring and offer their congratulations.
We were sealed for time and all eternity on 25 July 2008 in the Houston, TX Temple by Mitch's paternal grandfather and the rest is history!
