Today is our Anniversary ...

... of meeting each other! On this day four years ago I first attended my new summer ward. I had officially decided to hate all boys, but in a weak moment I decided to check out what the ward had to offer. Now, in a large group of LDS singles you have to have certain restrictions to wean you down to a small group of possibilities, right?

Restriction 1: I want a really righteous boy - so I limit my looking to the guys blessing and passing the sacrament. (Not that that is a really safe assumption, but I needed something quick and easy.) That whittles me down to eleven guys.

Restriction 2: Silly, perhaps, but I like when guys wear white shirts and suits to pass the sacrament. Wear what you want to firesides, funerals, etc., but when you officiate in the priesthood, I like my man to look the part. That whittles me down to about six guys.

Restriction 3: I don't like blonds. I'm okay with brunettes. But I LOVE black hair. Especially when its slightly wavy. (Silly, yes, but true. Sorry to all blond guys, especially to my five blond brothers!) If I include brunettes, this whittles me down to about three guys.

Okay, so (God forgive me) while the guys start passing the sacrament I take a look. Not bad. This one guy has written "I am Sam" on his name tag, which I thought was a funny reference to the book Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Suess. While I was staring at him and thinking about that, I realize what I am doing. See the problems boys cause?! That marked the end of my interest in the boys in the ward.

Well, after the whole three hour block I went to sign up for a new member interview with the Bishop. While I am signing my name on the list posted to the Bishop's office door I make some dumb comment about how Sunday is "my day" to do "what I want", only to notice this "I am Sam" guy looking over my shoulder, reading my name.

"Are you President Smith's daughter?"
[Me kicking myself for making such a stupid comment]
"Yes."
"Your dad was my mission president!"
"Oh wow! What's your name?"
"Sam Ricks. I think we met one time - when I got to the mission."
[Me racking my brain to remember him. I remember a lot of the Elders I met, but ... oh yeah! I do have one vague memory of talking to Elder Fackrell, and looking over at this really young-looking, dark-haired Elder standing by a couch.]
"Oh yeah! You have really grown up since then ... [Awkward pause - I am really good at making intelligent comments when I meet boys] ... anyway, it's nice to meet you. We should hang out some time."
"Yeah. Well, see ya!"
"Bye."

Now to this day I insist that my "we should hang out" comment was just being polite - I say it to everyone. But, to Sam that was flirting. And it gave him hope. See, three days before then, on a Thursday night, Samuel was talking to his ex-mission comp roommate about how he was sick of the not-so-good-girls in the ward (lets just say that our ward had something like 95% activity for boys, and about 30% activity for girls). So, Samuel had decided that he was going to ask the mission president's daughter out. He knew she was at BYU, and although he didn't know her name, he was determined to find her. Well, it was just his luck that a couple days later I showed up at his ward. And apparently I inadvertently flirted with him. So, he emailed me on Tuesday to ask me out for Friday. Unfortunately, I already had tickets to the show he wanted to go to that night. So, I invited him to come with my sister, my mission comp, and I. Well, he agreed and paid for his roommates so that they would come with him. To make a long story short, we had a pretty miserable time and each wrote about each other in our journals that night. He wrote the following about me:

"I like her personality, although it may be a little dominating for me... She’s not really my type as far as dating goes, and I don’t really have any aspirations of dating her... I just wonder if I could hack it and if we’d always have to be doing different things to keep her attention."

Obviously I made an awesome first impression. No worries, I wrote in my journal that talking to Samuel was "like talking to a wall." (And apparently I have experience talking to walls.) Well, thanks to my little sister, we hung out again a couple days later and actually had a pretty good time. Three months later we were married. And now, four years later, I am 7 months pregnant with our third child, we are selling our first home, and we are moving back east for grad school. Who knew so much could happen in so little time!

August 2004
July 2005
June 2006
September 2007
March 2008