and the saga continues...

After my trip to the farm we headed back to "normal" life in Rexburg. Well, as normal as a life can with including things like testing centers, chastity lines, milk cartons with names written on them, and 'Boys Out'.

Side note: Have you ever noticed that all of the apartment complexes in Rexburg are named after samething that Rexburg doesn't have??? Ex: Autumn Winds, Birch, Arbor Cove, Pineview....you get my point.

Anyways, I was heading back to Minnesota that fall to work...needed money bad. The day before I was leaving, Ty helped me pack all of my stuff up that I would be taking home and we headed back to Arimo. I was taking the shuttle down to the airport from a little town near where his family was. We stayed up all night just talking. I didn't really know what this all ment but aparently we were breaking up.

We headed to the shuttle in the morning....it sucked. When the van started to pull away and Ty was waving goodbye from the parking lot, I thought I had swallowed my heart. I couldn't say I loved him at that point or anything but I knew I thought he was pretty groovy. I think I spent that whole trip trying not to cry.

For the next four months I worked 80 hours a week! Not something I recomend but do-able if you know it is going to end at some point. Not to mention that if I saved enough to pay the insurace for the next year and enough for gas for the same amout of time, my dad was letting my take his, soon to be my, car! In Rexburg, everyone thinks they need a car. They don't, but you sure are cool if you had one.

So I worked my tail off getting speratic calls from Ty. That was about it. Way to cherish my time huh??

Well, the time to head out to school was quickly approaching and I needed someone to drive my car back out to school with me. Conviently, none of my friends could drive a stick (that is if you don't count my best friend, Linna, but remember this was 'conviently'). So I told Ty I would buy him a plane ticket if he would help me out. He agreed and I counted down the days.

Now realize, Ty was as excited as I was. He knew we were friends but he was adimit that was it. His family gave him crap the night before he left and he insisted that absolutly nothing was going to happen. I think he should have looked up irony in the dictionary before coming.

I picked him up at the airport and speed away. Here is way things get interesting...

While we were talking I felt somthing near my hip. I thought maybe something just brushed against me but then it was on my butt!!! I couldn't believe it....Ty has his hand on my behind! After a minute or two...I asked him what he was doing. He turned bright red and said he thought he was just playing with the seatbelt!!! We warmed up to each other real quick after that one.

That night, we rented 'Rat Race'. Well, it wasnt too far into the movie that we started holding hands. I still couldn't tell you what happened in the movie because I was so distracted by what MIGHT happen. Well, the details are fuzzy and we can't agree on who kissed who first but that is exactly what happened! After four months of 'kissing other girls' , his words not mine, we were back together.

I suppose I should back up a second.....I always (only half jokingly) said I was never going to kiss more that 10 boys in my life. Well, lets put it this way..... I made** it! Wanna know the meaning behind the **? Well, Ty was number 9....good right? Well, when we were broken up, I hit 10. But when I got back toether with Ty I went back to 9 again.....good right? Either way, I made it:)

So we started heading out to school right after Christmas.....so you can imagine the weather conditions. We mad it through MN.....ND.....but Montana wasn't lettin' us in. We pulled into a little town name Glendive, MT around 11pm to find out that the highway from there on out was closed because it was covered with a solid sheet of ice. Our only option was to get a hotel room. Neither one of us were terribly keen on this but we couldn't stay in the car...it was below freezing. So we found a hotel and our only option was to get one room....two beds..but only one room. Reluctantly we took it. Ty told me later that he figured I was worth keeping around because just before I passed out that night I told him 'if I wake up an you are in my bed, I will kill you.' Who knew thats all it would take!

We made it the rest of the way without incident!

We got back to Idaho about a week before school started which was my original intention. I figured I could be all set up and ready to go when class started. Because Ty and I had gotten back together on the trip back, I had no intention of heading back to Rexburg so early while he was in Arimo. He was taking the Spring semester off to work at the ski resort so he would be 2 hours away. The night before I left we were talking and Ty said it.....he said

"You're in trouble"

I asked him "why"

And he told me "because you made me fall in love with you"

Now any normal persons response to this declaration would be 'I love you, too'...right? Not mine! I knew I loved him but I was so freaked out by those words that all I could say was "Ditto!" Ditto!!! Yes ditto from the movie ghost! Its the best I could do. I finally did say it but it felt weird!
(Awful picture...but it was from that night so.....)

Later that month, we decide it was inevitable....we were gettin' married! This freaked me out even more! Not because I didn't want to marry him, but because I could imagine what my family was going to say! My sister had acutally told me (do you remember this, Molly?) that I wasn't 'allowed' to get married until I was 23. I was 21 when we decided this. And I had even told my mom that I would never ever marry anyone in the military seeing how tough it could be for both of my sisters. Boy was I wrong!!!! I was excited but terrified.

You are going to love the story of Ty asking my dad if he could marry me.........next time!

Chapter 2...

..who knew that in my world 'tomorrow' means a week!!

Back to the story...

WARNING.......you can't judge me on this one....it was the past.

After that first kiss...we became an item. It was never said, just assumed. This is pretty standard at BYU-Idaho.....dangorous but standand.

I was living in an apartment complex that used to be an old folks home. Because of that, the doorways were huge, there were bathrooms in the bedrooms, walk in closets, and all of the doors into the aparments were on the back side of the building to ensure privacy. My apartment was in the center making it the furthest to walk to from the parking lot. My roomate and I decided it would be a good idea to take the screen out of our bedroom window, which faced the parking lot, and use it as a door when we were feeling too lazy. Sad, I know, but true. Well, eventually this became a convientant way for Ty to let me know he was there, or say goodnight. There is a rule at BYU-Idaho that there are no boys back in the bedrooms.....we found a way around that. I think this may be a prime example of following the letter of the law vs. the spirit:)

Well we left that screen out all summer....should have put it back in when I started to notice foot prints on my bed from roomates climbing in and out:)

From the time we started dating until the Fall semester, it was a whopping one month. We accomplished a lot in the month though....like going to the farm for the first time....

Ty family lives in Arimo which is about 2 hours south of Rexburg so one weekend, it was time visit the bovine eutopia....ie: T.J. Smith and Sons farms. I'd never spent much time around tractors and cows so I was excited....nervous but excited.

The trip was going great.....we were even going to get to go ride horse's that belonged to Ty's old seminary teacher. I had been taking a horse riding class at school, I know I know but I figured I wouldn't never have a chance to do something like that on my dad's dime again, so I was excited.

We went and got the horses an headed back into the farm land towards the mountains. About an hour or so into the ride, we decided to switch horses. Ty jumped up on him new horse and I attempted to but Triby wasn't havin' it. He would move his butt away every time I went to put my foot in the sterup. So Ty, sitting on his horse, grabed my reins and held up Triby while I got up on the saddle. Ty decided to best way to get the reins back to me was to toss them over the horses head. Soooooo, not a good idea. The reins fell short, hit the horse in the face and spooked him. He took off full speed back towards the stables.......longs ways away at this point. Some time in there the reins wrapped around the horses leg so I had no hope of getting them back. Triby was galloping at full speed and I had NO way of controlling him. I honestly thought there was no way that I was getting out of this one with out major injuries.

Triby was on auto-pilot and took a sharp turn on a PAVED road toward the stable. I was scared beyond belief. Meanwhile Ty was trying so hard to catch up with me but his horse just wasn't fast enough. Well, here is the funny/embaressing/sad/bad part of the story. I mentioned that I was scared, well I didn't have the best reaction to the fear. I started yelling, no...screaming the worst possilbe swear word you can think off. And I mean for a long time.

At this point, I could see the barn in front of me and I thought maybe, just maybe, Triby would just slow down and head into the barn. No such luck. He continued on full speed past the barn!!! Past the barn with me still yelling obsenaties. Ty's horse, however, thought it was a good place to stop short. Ty flew over the front of the horse and slammed into the metal gate on the horse ring. At this point I noticed that there was barbed wire on the side of the road. I could get Triby to turn slightly but pulling on this mane. I decided that if I steered him towards that barbed wire, he would either jump the face or stop. I had to take my chances. Obviously, I was being watched over because he stopped!!! I jumped off, grabbed the reins and started to walked back to the barn. Ty ran to me and helped me walked Triby back. Of coarse......when we were tying the reins to a post, the horses bridal broke! While I was hanging on, a PIG ate the bottom of my shirt!!!! Yes I said a pig... I couldn't do anything about it because I couldn't let go of the horse!!!

Well, as murphy's law would have it, things wern't over yet! We headed into the barn and who was there? The seminary teacher AND.....the MISSIONARIES!!! Yes, that's right, I was screaming swear words in front of the missionaries. So ends the last experience of have had ridding horses.

To be continued....

The beginning.....

I opened the blog up again, moving on...

Today is a special day....today I am kick off the 'crap I don't want to forget' series. I'll admit it, I'm not the best at journaling so you all get to relive this stories with me!

So lets start with the number one thing I am thankful for.....this guy!!

Once upon a time...scratch that! Let's be honest, once upon a time is code word for this one Sunday at the hormone filled institution called BYU-Idaho, I went to church with my roommates. A normal occasion in Rexburg. The morning was filled with chatter about the new semester and all of the new 'meat' ie: boys, that would be coming into the ward.

I had just come back from 2 months in central America (we'll cover that another day) and had a killer tan! Okay, it had faded a little by this point but let's be honest, is that really a bad thing? I looked like a freak!

So with my tan faded to a nice golden color, I was feeling pretty good about myself. We walked up to the Snow building and were sitting in the lobby before sacrament and I saw a boy....a cute boy!!! Lucky me....he came over and talked to us! He introduced himself, I wasn't listening very well as I would soon discover, and just as he finished, it was time to head in.

Now, this is BYU-I...you sit with your roommates, end of story!!! I'll admit that I didn't get a whole lot out of that sacrament because I spent the whole time trying to discreetly, so not smooth, look around to find this boy. It turns out he was sitting a few rows behind us so you can imagine all of my poor excuses to turn around....I dropped something behind me...someone was calling my name...you get the point, just plain sad.

Church ended without another mention of him. Oh well....

Later that week, I hadn't run in the this new boy yet so I decided to take things into my own hands. Okay, that's not true. I'm a big wimp...I had my roommate take things into her own hands. She called over to the apartment I thought he lived in and asked her buddy who lived there if Troy was living with them. When he said no, she asked if he knew which apartment he lived in. No idea. Maybe I just imagined him.

Family home evening assignments were passed down that week and my roommates and we decided to go and meet the apartment of guys we were matched with. We walked into the so obviously boys apartment, it smelled like burritos, and there he was. TROY!

Now riddle me this?? How is it that out of all of the information he gave me when he introduced himself, I remember his MIDDLE name??? His name wasn't Troy, it was TYLER! I told you I didn't listen real well when we first met.

For a reason I can't remember, he walked back to my apartment with me before he had to go to work. I had been unpacking still and had a huge box of stuff that didn't have a home yet. Well, Tyler left shortly after with George Forman in hand. I had 2 for some reason and was happy to get rid of the clutter. We actually still have that grill.

We started hanging out at night and just learning about each other. He had just gotten home from his mission to the Philippines after going to basic training and AIT. I, well I couldn't shut up! That is the reason he first kissed me. Romantic huh? He claims to this day that the only reason he kissed me is to get me to stop talking. I think I might believe him.

To be continued.....tomorrow!!!

Most of you already know...

...but I'm going back to school. I'm know I know....shut up Audrey...right? Its all I've talked about for the last month or so.

But here is the run down. My first class starts on June 7th and then 3 more in the fall. Should be done in about 2 years. The goal is to have a job of some sort (definition to be determined later) by the time I'm 30......so 2 1/2 years away.

In the meantime I also started a photography blog so go take a looksie....again I'm sure you are sick of hearing about it....

www.thestuffishoot.blogspot.com