For the love! It has been such a long time. Here's the thing, life is a little more complicated than before. It's tougher to find time to post in here when I'm working during the day and then playing at night. I haven't been able to find much time to do research or other things that I've wanted to do. But I have wanted to write in here for awhile now. Maybe I'll just do shorter posts for now on...as long as I'm putting something in my blog, huh?
Ok, so we planted a bunch of flowers in an inflatable pool in front of my apartment. They are sort of coming along. They haven't budded yet, so you can't see the actual flowers yet, but the green stems and leaves are definitely there. The poor sunflowers- I don't think they'll grow much more because the soil is really shallow. We planted pumkins, watermelons, cauliflowers, and cantelopes all over campus. Most of them have been picked and what not but we have one hope left with some pumpkins. They're growing quite nicely on the path on the hill south of campus. I really hope they grow all the way so we can throw pumpkins off a bridge.
Summer is really fun- a lot of frisbee, swimming, hiking, biking, traveling, anything and everything. I love it here.
Lately I've gotten quite a few comments on here and questions about who this girl is in a lot of my pictures. Well...this is Emily. We've been friends since October 2006 when we first talked about all the good drinking fountains on campus. We played steal the flag once, I put my arm around her so that we would be disguised as a couple as we walked to the enemy side. We went to a basketball game once which was our first date. After that we didn't do much with each other for the spring and summer. I was back home during the fall semester, but I came out with some friends and I made sure to hang out with her. We played werewolves with friends and it was fun. I moved back to Provo in January 2008 and I ran into Emily on campus, but we were both talking on the phone so we couldn't chat. We hung out a couple times, playing football in the snow or playing werewolves. I started liking her again but still thought that I never really had a chance. But something happened, something big...she silly stringed me as I was coming out of Del Taco. Oh the games. Still though, I was nervous to take her out. Then something else happened...we played Battle UNO and she rested her arm on my knee. Oh the games. So I asked her out for what I called a wicked cool date. A year ago I wanted to take her out after our first date and do a choose your own adventure date. I even planned it out but never got to it. So I decided to do it again. A couple hours before the date I discovered a new talent- sounding like the singer Aaron Neville, "And I don't know much." Gavin said he would give me $3,000 if I would talk like Aaron Neville for the whole date. I thought about it on the car ride over, but I thought that it was possible that I could mess up a good thing by doing that. I told Emily on the date about the bet and she was disappointed I didn't do it. $3,000 would have been nice, but we both agreed that the date was worth more than that. I can't remember all the options she had for the first part of the date, but because it was hard for her to choose which adventure to do, I gave her the option of phoning a friend. Carrie Robinson decided that we should play basketball. So we played bball and beat another couple at the RB. And that's when I knew she was a keeper...lol. For the next adventure she chose finding a recipe online and making it over begging for food, a bonfire, Chinese food, or the Movies 8 snackbar. That brought her to final stage which was to play UNO at the H-fac. We ended up talking instead of playing, it was easier to talk with me because I was Kasey and not Aaron Neville.
And from there, ladies and gentlemen, the rest is history. I honestly don't know how the last 4 1/2 months could have been any better. I have never had so much fun with another person, never been able to talk with anyone else like I can with Emily, never felt so "wanting to be a better person" than I do when I'm with her. I think of the 'perfect girl' and she is it. During the 4 1/2 months we've dated, each day I came to like and then love her more and more. Each day I realized more and more that I could not live without her and that she is "the girl of my dreams."
Yesterday, June 30th, I asked her to marry me and she said 'Yes.' I woke up yesterday knowing that it would be the last "normal" day of my life. We've of course talked a lot about getting married and pinky swore that we would. She knew I wanted to marry her and I knew she wanted to marry me. But I wanted to surprise her. Me and Emily had this inside thing that we would write out dreams and then try hard to dream it and meet up in our dreams. Well she wanted to dream that we would play PIG w/o the honor, we would go on a convertible ride through the mountains, we would watch the sunset on a beach, and then we would dance on the beach under the stars and moonlight. So yesterday she was studying and I got her to take a break, we went and shot hoops and she beat me in PIG w/o the honor, and then I surprised her with a convertible and took her away. I thought she would know what was going on when she saw the convertible, but turns out she didn't. We drove the Alpine Loop in the mountains and forests behind Mt. Timp...it was gorgeous- just perfect. We drove through Provo Canyon to Deer Creek Resevoir and parked on the beach and danced under the stars and moonlight. I try to get to bed by 10:30 everynight so we started going home but we wanted to go to "our spot" along the river. We went there and we "found" a dozen roses. I started kneeling on one knee and started pulling out a ring box, but "accidentally" got it caught on my jeans and then somehow threw it into the river. I tried convincing her that I was freaked out and she was freaked out for a couple seconds too but then thought it was all a joke until I completely surprised her with the real ring in my right pocket. I asked, she agreed...and then almost passed out. Ha, poor Emily, she didn't get much sleep the night before and gave blood that day but gave more than a pint because they kept having problems and blood squirted onto her shirt and stuff. She was pretty nautious and light-headed and then this about did her in. But it was perfect. We told our families, then enjoyed the convertible some more, cruisin, picked up some friends, and enjoyed our "engagement night" together. So that is Emily everyone. My favorite person in the world, my bff (best friend forever), mi amiga (?), my fiancee! I showed a lady at work a picture of us two and she simply commented that she can tell we are best friends. We are...and more.
Anyway, sorry if this is mushy and stuff. I actually don't like it too much when people talk about little things their significant others do for each other because it is just a "them" thing and the world doesn't need to know about it. I don't imagine ever being this public again about our relationship because it's an "us" thing. Can't promise anything and I apologize if I slip. But I am very happy and excited. It's been a fun and rough ride. Dating is the worst and the best. The past 4 1/2 months have been simple the best, but there was a lot of worst before that. I'm not sure what it was...but a lot of close family and friends have made fun of me for not being married. It's unfortunate that our Mormon culture is like that and that people carelessly make you feel bad for something that you really have no control over. I'm sad to say that I'm not exempt from making careless comments either. But it's a normal and sad thing to equate your self-worth with your dating success. It's unfortunate that it's like that, because it shouldn't be like that, but it's kind of a negative consequence that comes about from all the talk about families/dating/marriage, etc. It's sad, but I used to kind of believe that I must have been a bad missionary because I wasn't married. That was a long time ago that I felt that, but members of the Church are really good at making you feel unrighteous for not being married, and sometimes it can be a completely harmless comment where you simply mention marriage. Some people probably need those comments but for most of the people I've been around, the comments really aren't needed, even if it's joking. Ummm, so yeah, I'm not meaning to make anybody feel bad for saying stuff like that to me, I'm fine, but if you're ever thinking about making a comment about somebody not being married...think twice.
Anyway, I got a lot to say, I guess. I haven't written in here in awhile. I didn't think I had much to say at the beginning, but now a novel is coming out. We went on a hike last Saturday, we started at Rock Canyon and went up to just to the side of Mt. Y by going around the backside. I really enjoyed the last half...and not just because we were going downhill. It was really scenic and just made me appreciate nature and Heavenly Father's little blessings He gives us. I felt that last night too. To be blessed with somebody like Emily just amazes me--it just puts me that much more in debt to Him for his countless blessings.
It's looking like Mitt Romney will probably be the VP choice. That'll be good for him. He really is a good choice and hopefully it'll help him for 2012. I really don't think McCain has a chance against Obama, which is really unfortunate cause Obama will be a really bad president. He is the most liberal candidate ever and it's unfortunate that the Dems will have a hey day with him as prez.
Here's our pumpkin on campus:
