Dream Blogging

A couple nights ago I had a dream where something really funny happened. And of course, I didn't realize it was a dream at the time, and thought I was caught up in this really funny thing. (I can't remember what my dream was now! Which is frustrating, because I remember it being really funny.) 

Anyways, after the funny thing happened in my dream, I thought, "I really have to tell everyone about this in my blog, it's so funny!" So there you go, I dreamed about blogging. I have never done that before. What's even better is that I forgot about my dream until that next day. And at that point, I forgot that it was a dream, and thought something really funny had actually happened to me and I needed to blog about it. I thought so hard about what that funny thing was, until I realized that it was a dream, and that the reason I wanted to blog about it was because I had told myself to in my dream. Haha.

Have you had a dream before where after you've woken up you think it actually happened to you, and remember later that you were dreaming?

 I do it all the time.

Growin' Veggies

I'm working on a gardening project.

Does anyone else my age love gardening? Sometimes I feel like I'm the only 22 year old who loves it. Michael and I already have a vegetable garden growing in our backyard that has tomatoes, broccoli, artichoke, cucumber, and watermelon (The carrots didn't make it...). Now that the cooler season is coming around, I'm going to grow lettuce and carrots because they grow better during the cooler climate.

I've worked at a garden center for six years, and I think this is a big factor for why I love to garden. My family also has a long background of gardeners so I like to think that it's also in my genes. :) My maiden name is Farmer so it was bound to happen.

To start off my project, I bought four bags of soil, weed barrier and a plastic raised garden bed. I also bought a packet of lettuce seeds and carrot seeds. Tomorrow Michael and I are going to set up the plastic raised garden bed, cover the ground below it with weed barrier (to prevent weeds from growing up into the garden bed), lay the soil on top and then put in our seeds.

I'm really excited to get started! Luckily I found a kindred spirit who's happy to garden with me. :) I'll post pictures tomorrow of the finished product.

If you're a kindred spirit too, let me know!! I'd love to talk gardening with you.

If you have gardening questions, I'm happy to help - if I don't know the answer, I have the resources to find it.

Hiking Mt. Timpanogos

Michael and I and our friends Chad and Lindsay started hiking Timp at 4 a.m. yesterday. Yep, who does that? Leaving that early really felt great though since we were able to get the most monotonous part of the hike done while in the dark. Having to find your way through the dark becomes more like an adventure, and it makes the first part of the hike doable. If you plan on hiking Timp, I highly recommend leaving at 4 a.m. or even earlier if you can do it.

There are two difficult parts of the hike, the first part and the very last. Those are the two areas where you really have to do some hard uphill hiking. During the middle part of the hike there is a gorgeous meadow that you walk through. That, for me, made the difficult parts totally worth it. The meadow was filled with beautiful wildflowers that filled the area with reds, yellows, whites, and blues. I would hike the Timp trail just to get to that part again. I love flowers and hope to create a beautiful garden one day that can at least, in one part of my garden, mimic the beauty of a meadow with wildflowers growing up everywhere. Here are a couple pictures that hopefully give you somewhat of an idea of this place:

And of course, the view from the top: (It was a cloudy morning, the clouds are right at our eye level practically. Pretty crazy!)

If you want to hike Timp, we liked the website www.summitpost.org/mt-timpanogos-ut/151365 because it helped us decide which trail to take and details about the hike.

Our Story (guy version)

*Please read the girl version of this post first. It's the post below this one. Thanks!*

So. Normally I am a very reserved person when it comes to relationships. Most of my friends never really knew who I ''liked'' growing up, or even my parents for that matter. You can even ask my best friend Chad Goodman. It just wasn't something that I felt comfortable talking about. (unless your Cam Leeper, who actually was with me during my brief ''open'' time. Which happened to be the same time this story begins. haha) Keep this in mind because it will help explain why I acted the way I did with Jennifer throughout what I felt like was our "High School relationship."

I faintly remember the day that Jennifer mentions in her tale as the day we first met. If I acted weird, which I'm not sure if I did  ;)  it would have been because I felt very intimidated. (Actually I guarantee I would have acted weird, I wouldn't have known what to do and what to say, haha.) At that time, I too had a small crush on Jennifer's friend and I also thought that Jennifer and her other friend were very attractive. It was a triple threat, I wasn't the type of guy that was used to having so much attention from good looking girls. So in my defense if I acted weird it was because I felt out of my realm.

I on the other hand remember the first day that we met a little differently. I remember one day sitting in the lunch room with a couple buddies from the football team. I had happened to glance over across the room and seen this beautiful girl walking towards the outside doors, I had never seen her before and wondered who she might be. A little later, while I was talking to my friend Pierce Hingson, Jennifer came back into the lunch room and Pierce called over to her. He obviously had known her and felt very comfortable in her presence. I, on the other hand, felt very uncomfortable. I wanted to impress her, but didn't want to act weird either. So to avoid the latter I remained silent. Pierce introduced me to her, I think I was able to muster a quick "hi" and then I fell silent again and listened to them talk to each other. While I watched her talk to Pierce I couldn't help but think how beautiful and confident she was, but also that I had no chance in ever being her friend like Pierce.

So time went on and we then had a run in, as Jennifer calls our "1st meeting"...... :) Slowly but surely over the years we had a couple more run-ins and I remember at one point I even got her number along with her two friends' numbers. But like I was ever going to CALL it, haha. No way! that was risky business I thought. I kept telling myself that it was safer to not call, than to call and make myself look like a fool. I mean, the only reason why she gave me her phone number was because her two other friends had given me theirs, but secretly I kept that piece of paper pinned to the pin board in my room for if I ever had the courage to actually call.

Time went by, junior year started. I remember talking to Jennifer and her friends after a football game, we must have just won for my confidence to be high enough to talk to them ;) At that moment I too was thinking about asking Jennifer to junior prom, but it was only going to be my second school dance, and I wasn't sure how to properly ask her. So, I fell silent. That night, while with my friends, I kept thinking that I should go ask her right then and there, but once again I couldn't muster the courage to do so. It wasn't until the next morning that I finally decided to wip out that good old Tiger Guide to look up her home phone number. I remember when Jennifer answered I panicked so much, because I didn't think SHE would answer. I tried to make this deep manly voice, but thought there was no way she would buy it. But she "appeared" to have. She passed the phone to her mom like I had asked and then I found out she had been asked the previous night. I kept thinking and beating myself up in my mind for not having had the courage to ask her the night before.

So, once again, time passed. We both went our separate ways for the most part. Every once in a while we would see each other in the halls and I, now having built up a little more self confidence, would tease her when I could.

Now it was our senior year. We were now the big dogs on campus. I remember being so excited to go to the stag dances after the football games. And then at one of them, while I was dancing around I saw Jennifer and her friends near by and we came together. We started to dance and we had a blast. At this point I wasn't having these mini crushes on Jennifer every time I talked to her, like I did before, but I remember thinking after the dance, "Wow, she is even cooler than I remember." And then that was that, I didn't think too much about her.

About two weeks later I came home to find this little scarecrow on the counter with a paper bag tied to it. (We still have the scarecrow by the way.) My mom said it was for me, and I got nervous. In my selfish way I thought, "Oh no, anyone who asks you this early to go to a dance must not be someone you would want to go with." So I nervously opened the bag and emptied its contents. It was a puzzle, and a name had been written on it with big letters. Only problem was that she had only given me 100 pieces of the 300. I was only able to get a couple of letters out of it when I had put together all I could. I still couldn't make out any name. I remained anxious to find out who it was. A couple of days later another bag appeared at the front door, and this time I was able to distinctly put together a J, N, F, M, R. I thought how cool would it be if it was Jennifer Farmer who had asked me. My nervousness changed to hopefulness and I longed for the last 100 pieces. The day came and to my great delight it was Jennifer's name that was put together. Promptly I thought the appropriate way to respond would be through a puzzle as well. I grabbed my grandma and we went to the store (my grandma is quite the puzzle wiz so I thought she would be the best one to help me pick out a puzzle.) I responded by giving her the entire puzzle at one time, but I with held one piece. The only trouble that Jennifer had was that the one piece I left out happened to be the one piece that had my answer written on it. Later on in the week, while we were hanging out I decided to give her the piece. It was then official. We were going to Sadie Hawkins.

As Jennifer said, Sadies was a blast. That was probably the night that I fell in love with her. After that I always wanted to be with her. It got to the point that it bothered some of my friends quite a bit, the fact that I wanted to be with her or have her around. I loved being with her so much and the fact that she expressed an interest in BEING with me as well led me to believe that we were dating. As Jennifer had mentioned, with my previous "girlfriends", we had never had to have the DTR. It was more of a "we feel comfortable together" and "we are confident the other person likes us in that way due to the fact that they hold my hand and cuddle with me". So, seeing how Jennifer had shown those exact traits, I had convinced myself that we were dating. When Jennifer would pull away from me I felt that she was showing me that she didn't like me like that anymore AKA she was breaking up with me. And the interesting thing was that the "climax" of our relationship would always be around the dances (Sadie Hawkins and Prom), then after that in my mind it would all go down hill because Jennifer would get more distant from me.

I then convinced myself that she was only using me for the dances and I decided to ignore her. In my mind it was easier to do that than try to be just her friend. So I did, that summer I didn't allow myself to call her to hang out, no matter how many times I wanted to, and I convinced myself that I had been used (I know, what a REAL mature thing to do).

Jennifer spoke to me at the football game like she mentioned. I remember when she called me. My heart skipped a couple beats I remember looking at me phone and it said "Jennifer Farmer." I immediately got anxious. Jennifer said that she was coming to the game and asked if I was going. I told her I was actually already there because the school was going to use my scooter/vespa  in the Home Coming Game. When she found me working on my scooter, she had mentioned how I had left $5 in her car and she wanted to return it. I at that moment felt like Jennifer said, I thought she only wanted to return the money and be done with it. So I told her to keep it and went immediately back to working on my scooter. I felt foolish to have allowed myself to get all excited when she called. (I know, I read between the lines WAY too much.) So when I saw her at the basketball game I decided I wasn't going to talk to her, even though the whole time part of me wanted to be sitting right next to her like nothing had ever happened. After the game I wasn't sure if I acted properly, I knew I was acting rude, but I didn't think she would have noticed, because I didn't think she really wanted to talk to me. When I got her text, I was heart broken. I realized that she had noticed, and I knew I had done wrong. I apologized immediately for my behavior, and I felt like any chance I had had was now completely and utterly gone.

Time went by and on the rare occasion Jennifer would call me up to do something. I enjoyed hanging out greatly, but I made sure that I didn't get too attached, because I didn't want to go through the "cycle" again.
Like Jennifer said around the time I got my mission call we started to hang out a lot. My dad had told me to live it up, because it was the last time for a while I was going to have some what of financial freedom. So I did, and we did everything that Jennifer had mentioned. I even bought a good mountain bike, but that's beside the point :)

The day came for me to say goodbye to Jennifer. It was two days before I went in to the MTC. We had originally planned to go bowling, but I still had to get some stuff from Mr. Mac, so we had a change of plans and she came with me. Jennifer didn't have much time to spend with me because she was leaving that day to Maine to go visit her sister Lara. When I was dropping her off I really wanted to give her a kiss. But I told myself I was going watch Jennifer and see if she showed any interest. When we said goodbye she made it very clear that all she wanted was a hung. We said our goodbyes and I was off. I got a little teary-eyed on that drive home because I thought that was going to be the last time I saw her as a single woman, and I would never have the chance to be with her.

Ok, so this whole time I had been writing Jennifer had been at work and I had nothing better to do, but now she is home, so I will speed up the story :)

While on my mission every time we would get mail I would hope to see that familiar handwriting. Unfortunately it came more seldom than not, well lets just say that when I got her letters and there was no stories of being engaged my hope would increase greatly. Then when I wouldn't get a letter for a long period of time I would assume the worse. Haha it even got to the point that with my trainer, Elder Perry (Dan), we "threw in the towel" and got it on tape. (If anyone wants to see the movie, just let me know and I will show you some time ;) ) Jennifer's letters were always few and far between. I received one package of photos from her trip to Italy and that was the best Christmas preset I had ever received! Then I didn't hear from her for a while (come to find out a bunch of her letters got lost in the mail.) I won't lie though, I wasn't the best letter writer either. Sometimes it would take me a couple of weeks to write back. I didn't have a real hope of Jennifer until I got a letter from my mom and she had said that she had spoken to Jennifer and Jennifer had expressed that she had feelings for me. I then got really excited.

When I got home to San Antonio I waited a couple of days to call Jennifer, but once we started there was no stopping. There were very few nights that we didn't talk on the phone, but on those occasions my dad would tease me and ask why I wasn't having my nightly looove talk.

When I got back to Orem things went quick... well, they weren't quick for me, I had been waiting for this for 4 years now :) After 3 days we had told each other that we loved each other and after a week we knew we were going to be married for time and all eternity. From the day that I got home until now there have only been 3 days that we haven't been with each other, and I wouldn't change that for the world. Some my call that  too quick, but we both knew it was right. I haven't been happier in my entire life and will love every moment I get to have with my other half. She is my home and my life. I love her.

Our Story (girl version)

**WARNING long post**

I'm sure Michael will like to include HIS side of the story of how we met, but for now.... while he's not here ;)... I'll give mine.

Michael and I went to the same high school together. I first met him our sophmore year when a friend of mine wanted to introduce me to a cute boy she liked who was in the same seminary class as her.

I remember waiting for her and another friend in the hallway once class had ended and seeing them walk into the school with this TALL boy between them. I emphasize tall because my first thought was, "Woah he's tall." Michael was the first boy I met my age who was 6' 5". He is still 6' 5", poor kid stopped growin at age 15... ;)

Anyways, once I got over the tall factor my next thought was "What a cutie." But of course, he was off limits because of my previous mentioned friend crushin on him. This friend of mine introduced me to Michael, and as I can recall, I said "Hi" and his response was a "Oh hey" and then a quick look over to a friend down the hall and a "I gotta go" to my friend. Ya..... Michael denies this happening but I remember it very clearly...

So, nothing happened between this friend of mine and Michael, and the next time we met was our junior year of high school where my friends and I talked to him after a football game. I remember thinking how cute he looked in his football uniform. We started to talk and I was getting a vibe that Michael may ACTUALLY be noticing me this time! So after a while we let him run off into the locker room and my friends and I went and did our own thing. Homecoming was coming up and I hadn't been asked yet and my thoughts started wandering to Michael and thinking how it could be fun to go with him.

Well, that night I was asked to homecoming, but not by Michael. That next morning, however, I woke up to a phone call, and the talking caller I.D. was saying "Hall Daniel". My first thought was "Oh no, Michael's asking me to Homecoming...." I answered the phone to hear a very low man voice asking me if Sister Farmer was home. (I knew it was Michael the whole time, but played it off like I didn't) My mom picked up the phone and I could hear her downstairs quietly saying "Yes, she's already been asked, I'm sorry." So Michael asked someone else and we didn't really talk with each other again until our senior year.

During our senior year, after each football game there were stag dances where you could go and dance with everyone. I LOVE going to dances and would dance like crazy. I wasn't going to just stand around like many of the kids my age did, it's a dance people. Anyways, I was always looking for the group of people who would actually want to dance at a dance. Michael turned out to be one of the people who danced! And we danced the same way! Both just doing our own thing and not worrying about how we looked, just having fun. We always ended up being drawn to each other at these dances and having an awesome time.

Because of this, I thought it would be really fun to ask Michael to Sadie Hawkins. So I did, WAY before the dance happened, probably a couple months early.  Michael told me later on that he was actually concerned about who might be asking him because it was weirdly early for me to ask him. In my defense, I did this because I knew he was the only one I wanted to go to this dance with and didn't want to risk him getting asked by anyone else.

The dance with Michael was so much fun! I hadn't had so much fun with anyone at a dance before and loved every second of it. But now, the drama part of the story kicks in.... Michael and I viewed each other a little differently from this point on. I looked at Michael like he was one of my best friends, who I loved to hang out with and talk to about everything. Michael, however, had a crush on me. He thought I was his girlfriend! You can see that this could become complicated. I didn't want a serious boyfriend and he hadn't had the DTR (Define The Relationship) with either of his previous girlfriends. It was just a mutual concensus that they were dating. Well, I was very used to having the DTR and since Michael and I never had one I just assumed that he knew we weren't boyfriend/girlfriend. In Michael's defense, I did hold his hand a couple of times and cuddled with him a couple times during some movies. I shouldn't have done that, I know that now, but at the time I liked having him close! I felt very comfortable with him and I'm a cuddly person.

Throughout our senior year, our relationship was usually us doing lots of things together, me getting the vibe that Michael liked me more than a best friend, so me trying to back away a little bit so he knew we were not boyfriend/girlfriend and then him thinking we broke up and the whole thing repeating itself again. Things were a little complicated. But we stuck through it! Once Michael and I graduated I didn't see him again for almost a year.

When I did see him again it was at a high school football game and we were being super seniors and going to it. I called Michael on my way there to see if he was coming and he said he was going to be there. I wanted to catch up as well as give him some money that I had owed him for a long time. Well, that obviously wasn't the best time to give him back his money because Michael got the impression that I only wanted to give back the money and he said he didn't want the money and I could tell he was upset with me. I felt bad after that, and didn't really know what to do.

The next time I saw Michael was at a basketball game five months later. I tried to say hi to Michael after the game. I knew he'd seen me so when I got down to where he was and tried to talk to him he was already off with some other friends and not looking over at me. I honestly had been clueless up to this point that Michael might have been hurt by something I had done. Ya.... so naive but hey I was young right? Haha.

I left the game knowing that Michael was hurt by something I had done and I texted him once I got back to my apartment to tell him that if I had hurt him in the past I was sorry and asked if he'd forgive me. I've always known Michael has an amazing character and very kind and forgiving. And this circumstance was something that just increased my knowledge of that. Immediately after I had texted Michael he texted me back saying that I didn't need to apologize and that he was sorry for the way he had treated me at the game. I couldn't believe how easily he was willing to forgive me and from that moment on we kept in contact with each other.

Michael got his mission call at the beginning of May (I think) and I went to see him open his call. After I saw him there we started to do more things together again. We went mountain biking up in Alpine where I biked awesomely until the very end where I fell and got a cool looking Nike type scar on the side of my waist. We also went up to Park City for his birthday, just me and him, where he treated ME to a day of zip lining and dinner and going around Park City. And to top it all off, the week before he left on his mission, Michael took me to a fancy French restaurant in Salt Lake City called La Caille where we had a fun, beautiful evening together eating dinner and touring the restaurant's grounds.

Michael then left on his mission, we wrote eachother during that time, (he'll have to fill you in on the writing situation...) and when he got home to San Antonio where his family moved, we talked on the phone every day until he got home to Utah August 7th. We dated until September 13th when he asked me to marry him, and we got married December 30th. I love being married to him, he is my other half, my best friend. I couldn't live without him.