Our Wonderful Life: May 2013

Alright, alright. Here is our story...

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 30-JOURNAL ENTRY

Journal entry: "I decided to go country dancing for the second week in a row! My friends Hannah and Misty are some of the instructors, so that makes it more fun to go too! Guess what? I'm an intermediate country dancer! I got asked to dance a lot, so I got to practice. Some guys were teaching me to swing dance and that's way fun, and they said I was pretty good for a beginner! I danced with a few attractive guys, but nobody got my number, hopefully next week!"

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 1-JOURNAL ENTRY

Journal entry: "This guy (we'll call him Joe) has been really annoying this week because he's been texting me all the time and calling me so he can "hear my beautiful voice"....blah, blah, blah. He's not worth it, I could find a guy 100% better than him, and I can't wait until I do!"

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 6-COUNTRY DANCING

I walked into country dancing where I decided to go to the beginners class because my friend was teaching, even though I am an intermediate country dancer (yeah, be jealous). I walked over with two of my girlfriends, Rachel and Becky. Most of the dancers were already coupled up and then a guy and his two friends walked up to us, the first one asked me if I wanted to be his partner for the first hour of instruction. I said "sure!" We were then split up into a boy group and a girl group so that they could teach us the two step and the three step without the boys stepping on our toes! When the split us up, my partner said "Ok, my name is Kelly, don't forget me."
Well, we danced the whole time during instruction, he had a cowboy hat, big belt buckle, and a flannel shirt...so pretty much in my eyes he was catching my eye. Then the dance started, the lights dimmed and the dance floor opened up. I got asked to dance a few times by other guys and then Kelly asked me to dance a real dance since during instructions it's so stop-and-go. We danced and it was really fun.
About an hour went by and Kelly asked me to dance again. This time his hands were really cold which felt really good when he held onto me because I had been dancing nonstop for a few hours. He said that he left the dance for a while to go get a Root Beer. Then he asked me on a date!
Kelly's side of the story is so much better. This is what he tells me... He says that I was the prettiest girl at the dance and when he saw me walk in he was going to ask me to be his partner. When the instructional was over and the real dance started, a girl asked him to dance, so he danced with her, but he said that he didn't want to dance with anyone else but me. So waited for the next song and asked me to dance. After we danced he left with his friends to go to some girls house for cookies. Then him and Nolan (his roommate) went to Broulim's for Root Beer. When he was gone he kept thinking about "that girl from the dance" (he didn't remember my name). He decided that he'd go to the dance the next week and find me there (it's a good thing he didn't wait because I never went alone again due to a creepy stalker that appeared that night...but that's a whole different story.) He decided to go back to the dance and find me, he asked Nolan to be his wingman. At the dance he found me on the dance floor with another guy. Two girls from his ward came up and asked him and Nolan to dance. He told them that he really just wanted to dance with a certain girl. He was mustering up the courage to come ask me to dance because I was just standing on the sidelines by then. Just then Rachel (my friend) walked up and said "hey, there's your girl" and he said "yeah, do you think she'd go out with me?" Thank you Rachel, I don't know if we'd be here today without you!
He asked me to dance again and asked me out while we were dancing, after the dance he got my number.....
And that my friends, is the story of how we met!
*Disclaimer: this may or may not be super accurate because I'm just remembering bits and pieces of what he has told me...*

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 7-OUR FIRST DATE

Kelly picked me up, right on time. I only had a half hour to get ready because I had just gotten out of my practicum. When we walked out and I saw this big red truck (Chevy of course) I knew that this had to be some special guy! We drove down to Idaho Falls so we could eat at Red Robin...yummmm! We listened to country music and talked the whole way. It was really fun. On our way back we headed to Mill Hollow for some frozen yogurt...we got in our first argument, the song "Toes" by ZBB. He (still) thinks that they are talking about Professional Bull Riding (PBR) and I KNOW that they are talking about Pabst Blue Ribbon (PBR). Anyways.... continuing on our date, we went to Mill Hollow, I ordered some peach frozen yogurt and he ordered something with a bunch of gummy bears on top! After the date, on the way home he said "Is this going to be one of those dates where you get home and sigh with relief that it is over, because I was going to ask you out again, but not if you don't want to." Well, I wanted to go out with this guy again, so I said yes! But I left for a backpacking cross country ski trip that weekend, so it would have to wait until next week.

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 11-DATE 2

Journal entry: "So uh...guess what? I went on a second date with Kelly tonight-I found out his last name, Hendricks. Anyways we went to Jamba Juice and it was super chill. We just talked and drew pictures, dude, I'm awful at dating-I think! I try to flirt and be all cutesy but I don't think I succeed very much haha. I think I'm interested in him, I haven't even known him for a week, so it's hard to tell! We had a competition to see who could draw the best picture. Man! Mine was super lame. It's of a girl swinging from a tree, lame right? Buuuu.... he did ask me to hang out with him and his friends on Wednesday, so I fell like he might like me? Well, we'll see how this goes!"

Here's the picture that Kelly drew:

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 13-DATE 3

So we had our date, he cooked for me! He watched a bunch of youtube videos about how to make fried chicken. He went on his mission to St. Louis Missouri, so he likes that southern cookin'. We also made Mac n' Cheese. If you notice the date (Feb. 13) it was the day before Valentines Day. There was a knock at the door and a guy was going door to door selling flowers and little teddy bears. AWKWARD! I was so scared that Kelly was going to feel pressured into buying something for me, but it was only our third date. The guy said "Oh, is this your girlfriend? Do you already have flowers for her for tomorrow?" AWKWARD! Haha Kelly was just like, "no, she isn't." After that guy left my heart stopped beating at lightning speed and we just went into the living room and talked on the couch.

Then we left because my friends were playing with tennis balls soaked in gasoline and lit on fire!

This is Kelly juggling fire:

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 14-VALENTINES DAY

Our fourth date! Kelly picked me up to go ice skating in Rigby. When we got in the car he said "I have some bad news, some of my friends are coming with us....and they need a ride." So we ended up taking some of his friends...who all just happened to be yuppy girls who live in The Ivy. They were really nice, but I don't know how we got stuck with 3 girls in the back of his truck on Valentines Day! I was terrible at ice skating, but he was patient and skated with me. Once when we were skating around he said "I was hoping you wouldn't be very good at skating so we could be like that couple" as he pointed to a couple where the girl was struggling, so they were holding hands. Well, being my awkward self I said something dumb like "Oh, I was hoping you'd be bad" (WHAT WAS I THINKING!!!!) Right before the rental shop closed we escaped early because he asked me if I wanted to go to Wendy's and get a frosty. I was FREEZING but I didn't want to pass up the chance for ice cream... and to get to know him better. When we got to his truck he used the line of "Oh, this side seat belt doesn't always work, but the middle seat belt ALWAYS works". So I sat in the middle... just for safety precautions ;) .We got Frosty's and took the girls home. Then he asked if I wanted to go home, but I didn't so we just drove all over Rexburg looking for the Statue of Liberty . Oh! I forgot to tell you! He brought me a present on Valentines Day! He wrote me a really cute note/card and brought me a pine bough that he cut off of a tree at Porter Park with a Snickers bar tied to it!

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 18

I left for the weekend to go home to Jessie's play. When I got back on Monday Cori, Andrew, and Melissa all wanted to hang out with me and so did Kelly. So, I decided they should meet! We went to McDonald's for ice cream and then to the Warwood's house to play games. On our way there, it was just Kelly and I driving in his truck, he asked me "how are you not married yet? You're a senior and you go to BYU-Idaho!" I didn't take it offensively, but I didn't take it as a compliment either, I didn't know what to think of it! But now it's a compliment! After playing games we got back in his truck, it was FREEZING! So I was trying to warm up, but the heaters don't work except for in the defroster and the feet heater. So, he said "you can either stick your hands up here by the defroster or down by the floor...or we can just hold hands!" So... we did!!! And we walked around Porter Park, but he was in shorts, so that didn't last too long!

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 19

This is the day I got my first and last boyfriend. We went and got white hot chocolate from the Cocoa Bean then we went out to the Teton-Vu Drive-In theater where we went star gazing. We just sat in the back of his truck and talked and held hands. Here's a play-by-play of our discussion:

Kelly: "So...we've seen each other a lot letely and I want to keep seeing you, so....what does that mean?"

Jenna: "Uh, that's how I feel too, well.... I don't want to say it, buuuuuut....."
Kelly: "Uh, yeah. Wow! look at the moon!"

Jenna: "Haha yeah! So, what do you think?"

Kelly: "Well, remember on our third date when that guy came to the door and asked if you were my.... well....would you want to be my....?"

Jenna: "Uh... yeah... would you want to be my...?"

And then Kelly stood up in the back of his truck and yelled "JENNA KNIGHT IS MY GIRLFRIEND!"

SATURDAY, MARCH 2

Kelly asked me to go watch the sunrise with him. He picked me up at 5:30 am and we drove out behind "R" Mountain. I made a special CD for us to listen to. It was full of romantic country songs... I was hoping for our first kiss to happen while watching the sunrise. I planned for track #17 to be the song "Are You Gonna Kiss me or not" by Thompson Square, I was going to muster up enough courage to actually ask him if he was gonna kiss me or not and I figured that by song #17 I would have enough guts to do that. So we listened to a few songs as we drove out there and I told him not to read into the songs after realizing exactly how lovey-dovey the songs were. So we parked out in the Menan Buttes and waited for the sun to rise. Fail. It was way to cloudy for the sun to rise AND we were parked right behind R mountain... so we couldn't see a thing. Since this was a flop we decided to just go get some mud on the tires and we drove off through the mud puddles. Track #17 came and went because I didn't have the courage to actually say it! Fail.

After taking me home to get ready for my friends bridal shower, he texted me and asked if I wanted to go to the car wash with him since his truck was so muddy and he wanted to get it cleaned. I still had a little time before the shower started, so I said I'd go with him. After he picked me up we drove to Ray's Car Wash. When we got inside the car wash he said "Have you ever kissed in a car wash?" and I said "Nope!" and then I realized that I needed to make this happen, so I said "Were you going somewhere with that?" to which he replied, "did you want me to go somewhere with that?" my smile must have answered his question because he leaned in and gave me the quickest kiss ever! Buuuuut hey, that's the story of our first kiss!

SATURDAY, MAY 25

Well, a lot has happened since February 19. But I wanted to skip all of that and just hit the biggest milestones of our relationship.

I went to visit Kelly and his family in Yakima. On Saturday night after boating in Vantage all day, we got cleaned up and took his moms convertible mustang out for a drive. We drove to Cowiche Canyon and took a little walk. We didn't get too far when Kelly said "We should take a picture because it's so pretty right here" So he set the camera down and we took a picture. Then we decided to take another one because I looked weird. So he set the camera back down and set the timer. When he was running back over to me he reached into his pocket and that's when I figured that it was a ring box. I was too nervous to look at him so I just faced forward. Then he dropped down on one knee and I looked at him. This was the moment! He was proposing! I don't remember exactly what he said because I was choking back tears and trying to breath and swallow at the same time! I think he said something about wanting to marry me and something about how he loves me!

But all I know is that I love him so much and I can't wait to start my life with him. He is the best thing that has ever happened to me and he treats me so well. I love Kelly Hendricks!

SUNDAY, MAY 26-PHOTO SHOOT