Adventures in Dating

I hesitate to post on my blog about such personal things, but it is essentially my journal, and I want to remember these times.  I also know of about 6 people who read my blog and they are all related to me or dear friends who already know all this, so here it goes.
I met James early in September online (this whole online thing has proven to be quite fruitful for me!).  We emailed back and forth for a few weeks, and our first date was the end of September.  We met at a Thai restaurant in Sandy.  I thought he was very cute, easy to talk to, and just all around a great guy, and we had a lot in common.  He asked me at the end of the date if I would go on another date with him.  I said yes, of course!  On a side note, I really like when guys do that at the end of a first date.  That way you don't have to wonder and analyze and become a spazz waiting to see if he will call or if you should text him to thank him or what the next move will be if there is any next move at all.  Dating is so dumb! But it is kind of exciting and fun at the same time!
We went out again the following week downtown to the Church History Museum and to dinner at the Blue Lemon.  Again, I had a really great time and continued to be quite impressed with this guy.  The following week, I had tickets to the Carrie Underwood concert.  He was kind enough to be my date even though he doesn't love country music.

At the Carrie Underwood concert...our first picture together...ahhh, how cute!

We went out again the next night.  He took me to the Bombay House (my first time ever eating Indian food...love it!), and we went to Barnes and Noble.  At this point, I was still extremely impressed and starting to wonder if this boy is for real.  Is it possible for me to have gone on several dates with someone and there be zero red flags and love everything I have learned about the guy?  That is what was happening!
We went out again the next week before I left for my Chicago trip.  We went to Bruges Waffles and Frites and then wandered around downtown trying to find pearl sugar to recreate Bruges waffles.  No pearl sugar to be found.

Machine gun sandwich at Bruges

After that, I was in Chicago, and then he was on a cruise with his family.  Absense definitely made the heart grow fonder...for me anyway!  He took me up to Park City for my birthday, and we walked up and down Main St and went to dinner.

Park City - he's not abnormally tall, I'm just abnormally short!

We have gone to several BYU sporting events.  He has passed the BYU-fan/behavior-at-a-sporting-event test!

We double dated with the engageds last week and went to see Lincoln and got dessert.  We played around with the Hobbit display.  I'm hobbit size!

And we have of course done the typical lights at Temple Square date.

I even helped him decorate his parent's house for Christmas.  Here I am wearing the tree skirt as a real skirt.  I'm pretty dorky!

So the bottom line is that James is amazing and I adore him!  We are having so much fun dating and spending time together.  Hopefully posting this doesn't jinx anything!  It could all be over tomorrow (this is how dating goes, for me anyway), but I sure hope it doesn't!  He is a definite keeper!  Stay tuned as my adventures in dating continue!  It has been a crazy year in the dating department, but I'm overjoyed to be ending 2012 on a good note!

Another Football Season in the Books

Back in March when Olivia and I were buying our season football tickets, we both decided to buy two tickets in good faith that we would have "someone special" to go with us to the games in the fall.  It turned out to be quite the adventure!  Olivia started dating that "special someone" in June.  I started dating someone in May and thought my extra tickets were taken care of as well.  That didn't turn out so well!  So my special someone ended up changing on a game-to-game basis. 
We kicked off the season by going to a cougar party where we got a poster signed by a bunch of players to hang in Olivia's classroom.

Jake (Olivia's now fiancee) couldn't come to the first game, so Kara and Tricia joined us.  Tricia is great date to a football game!  There is something SOOOO exciting about the first football game of the season.  I love the sights, sounds, smells, and everything about college football!  White out for game 1!!

Olivia's sister and brother-in-law also got tickets with us.  The whole crew was there for game 2.  Tricia was my special someone again.  Bless her!

Quade was my special someone for game 3, and we got our first cougar tails of the season.  What a dream!  Game 3 was blue and white depending on what section you sat in.  We were in a white section.  You can kind of see the effect in the second picture.

I already blogged about game 4 when I took Jack and Sophie and my special first date with Josh.  That post is called "Mom Practice" if you need to refresh!
Olivia's mom joined us for game 5 along with Kara and Tricia again.  This one was a black out.  Yes, I did buy 3 different t-shirts for this football season.  Ridiculous!

The last game of the season started with a foot of snow on all the benches, but I finally had a "special someone" to bring with me!  Meet James!  He is spectacular!  And no offense to all my other special someones who joined me this season, but James was the one I was after all along! I did wear my snow pants, snow boots, and snow coat to this game.  Nice and cozy!

The thing that was not special about this season was the football team.  Ugh!  What a disappointment!  They are still bowling in December, but good grief!  They give ulcers!  As they say, there is always next season!  Hopefully I will still have a special someone to get tickets with next year!  And I'm sooooo happy that Olivia found her "special someone" to get season tickets with for eternity!  Yippee!!

Bucket List #88 - Mow a Lawn - Complete!

While I was in Boise, I got to mark another thing off my bucket list!  I mowed Ryan and Kara's lawn.  How have I gone my 33 years without mowing a lawn you ask?  I have no idea!  My dad and brothers always did all the mowing growing up and I've always lived in apartments since moving from home. I quite enjoyed it!

Thanks, Ry for letting mow that bad boy!