monday night flashback #31: special wednesday edition

my brother was the impetus for grant and me getting together (thanks again for that, jared). see here. it took some time. 

while i was in high school, grant and i had our first first date. we tripled with jared and grant's sister jewel, and grant's parents. it was actually super fun. we went up to salt lake city for dinner (and maybe a movie?) anyway, grant and i talked a lot and hit it off. i'd always thought he was cool. i mean, duh:

cool. and unaware of said coolness, thus magnifying it. plus, he's not hard on the eyes. back to the date: it was great. i had hopes. and . . . nothing. in grant's defense, i was still in high school and i didn't call him either. but the attraction was there!

fast forward to late spring/early summer 2002, jared mentioned to me that he'd told grant to ask me out. i waited excited and breathless for a week or two and . . . again nothing. life moved on. i did silly things with my friends:

grant did manly, tough things with jared:

now and then i joined them on their excursions, usually as the camera wielder. eventually, i was allowed to hang out as one of the gang. we played video games (like halo) and ate ice cream. on one such night, sometime in the fall (maybe winter) of 2002, we decided to get root beer floats at the kfc/a&w in provo or orem. grant (secretly crushing on me) treated us all. as we waited, i daringly grabbed a straw and shot the wrapper at him. wouldn't you know it? i got him right between the eyes. he must have liked it because he finally called to ask me out a few weeks later . . . 

happy (33rd) birthday dearest muffin!! xxx

monday night flashback #30

dating grant was easy. well, it was after i called to ask him out for the first time (two weeks after our second first date [that's a story for another day]). we got along swimmingly, never argued or tortured each other with silly mind games. 

the *second most stressful moment for me in our relationship was when i had to decide on a valentine's gift. i mentioned that date briefly in this post. i knew grant was planning something special and at the last minute i decided i should give him something. i wrestled with thoughts of doing something nice without doing anything too serious. we still hadn't kissed and i'm pretty sure we hadn't even used the terms "boyfriend/girlfriend" with each other yet. this is making me laugh now but i was having serious anxiety over it at the time. i ended up getting him a ten-pack of ice breakers gum (maybe i was expecting a valentine's first kiss and wanted it to be minty...).

grant picked me up in his mom's fancy trooper a few minutes after i got back from the store. i awkwardly handed him the gum and felt silly for worrying so much when he didn't give me anything. he played his cassette tape full of brazilian music and we went to dinner at rodizio grill (which has since been turned into a p.f. changs). grant tried to order guava juice but confused the waiter by asking for "goiaba" (portuguese for guava). after dinner we got back in the car and he handed me an express giftcard. he had me pegged as someone who likes buying clothes for herself, an apt assessment. 

i bring this all up now because we bought some book cases this past week and while i was digging through trinkets to display, i found these:

does this mean i can't claim to be non-sentimental? grant is more sentimental than i am. he actually taped  up a pack of the gum and carried it around in his pocket for a while (something i didn't learn until after we'd been married for a while):

i was very impressed that grant would walk into a women's clothing store solo to get the giftcard for me. and that he paid enough attention to know what my favorite store was. he's such a keeper. 

*the most stressful moment, if you're curious, was when grant said, "is it ok to say 'i love you'?" (this was two days after our first kiss) it was stressful, not because i didn't have feelings for him, but because i wasn't comfortable expressing said feelings. i think i said something like, "i really really really really like you" that night and the three scary words a week later. 

as for the book cases, we've needed some more for a while. grant regularly has piles of library books lying around and i've wanted to show of my souvenirs for ages now. 

grant put them together while the girls colored:

they became crazier and crazier:

and ended up staining their pajama knees:

awesome.

also awesome, but not in a sarcastic way:

we just wanted to emphasize how small our t.v. is.

and now a quick recap of mother's day. grant bought me the most beautiful shoes:

i love them so, so much! hazel drew me this lovely picture:

hazel (on the right) is handing me a sunflower that is thinking "love". check out the eyebrows. 

my picture from lucy:

grant wrote lucy's explanation, "all raindrops are coming because it's raining. and this is the thunder. she likes it..."

grant let me take a nap, before making me dinner and a tasty chocolate cake. and the girls went to bed in time for us to watch the newest episode of sherlock. a very good day.

and look how good lucy is getting at writing her name:

beehive state adventures: part 10

last friday, the  22nd, grant and i attempted the hike to our tree. i was feeling good about it. "hey, i've been training for a half marathon. a couple mile hike will be a piece of cake." then i saw these signs:

and my spirits dampened a bit. we set off anyway (i don't think anything would have deterred grant. he was determined):

can i tell you: this is a super steep trail. there are no switchbacks. it was killer on my legs.

i tried to be tricky and would stop to take pictures so i could rest.

but then the camera started to get heavy so grant took a turn:

it wasn't long before i took it back to resume my photo-taking breaks:

the beginning and the end of the hike were the steepest parts. i tried to capture the slope in this picture and it doesn't look very daunting: 

trust me. it was incredibly vertiginous.

we were getting closer and closer to our destination:

and further and further away from civilization:

finally we reached the saddle:

grant told me to see if i could remember where our tree was:

and i did:

it's still thriving:

we didn't linger very long. the sun was setting and it was soon dark. we hurried but the going was tough. turns out going down a super steep, rocky trail is harder than going up. we slipped and slid our way down. i took one hard fall, one smaller fall and tweaked my ankle then my knee (not seriously, thanks to my yoga). after most of those little trips, grant found me a nice walking stick to help me out. i was haunted with thoughts that i'd hurt myself and be unable to run the timpanogos half. 

eventually we got to the bottom. i was exhausted, dirty and sore but alive and happy to have seen our tree again.

mountains, glorious mountains!

last night we headed up the provo-side of american fork canyon. we had gone up last saturday and wanted to use our 3-day pass again. i have pictures from the last trip and all of last week but i left our camera at cousins' carl & velvet house so todays blog post (we took gail's camera) will just be about our adventure at . . . 

grant and gail returned home from school and work, i went for a run and then we made our way up: 

grant made sure to help lucy violate the "do not touch the water" signs:

hazel and lucy loved seeing so many little waterfalls:

it's such a pretty place:

i've only been once before, that i can remember. it was when grant and i had our engagement photo taken. we came upon the stairs and tried for a re-creation:

it might have been close if i hadn't been in my running clothes with sweaty, nasty hair.

we trucked along:

here is what lucy's face looks like when she says "cheese!":

this one is super cute. you'd almost think the girls liked each other:

next is my artsy picture. there should always be one:

lucy and hazel have so much fun with grandma:

grant decided to take a dirt road home. here at the top you can see down into heber:

we stopped for a couple of fresh strawberry shakes, which the girls [mostly] refused to eat. and that concluded our family night.