Our "Love Potion": Ingredients 1 & 2

Often while we were engaged I would teasingly accuse Andrew of putting a love spell on me, and he would respond that no, he hadn't, although he was pretty sure that I had put one on him. This was all done in jest, referring to how magical and perfect our relationship felt. If it WAS a spell, it was a doozey of a spell, and it had been mixed to perfection! I couldn't dream up a better relationship than this one; Andrew had become my everything.

In a way, we both worked on this "potion" together by investing into our relationship and both of us striving to be the best we could be. But there are definitely a few unusual ingredients that have become a huge part of our marriage that make our relationship fun and well-founded. Every relationship has these - our "ingredients" are different than other relationships, and each relationship has a way of throwing their own little "spices" in to the batch that make it unique and delicious!

Ours are definitely a strange combination of "flavors", and I'm sure I'll continue to mess with the ingredients and spices along the way (after all, I love cooking and I can never leave things alone without adding my own touch to it to make it even better).

1. Ballroom Dancing!

Andrew and I met at a YSA Stake Dance that we were both crashing (it wasn't our Stake, so we were both surprised to find out later that we were in the same Stake).

Andrew claims that he had noticed me prior to seeing me dance ballroom with his younger brother Tom, but after seeing me dance ballroom it sealed the deal - he HAD to ask me to dance!

Our first dance was a foxtrot (both when we met and at our reception, because "our song" happened to be a foxtrot. Otherwise Andrew prefers waltz).


He had been on the UVU Ballroom team and Ballroom was a huge part of his life. On his mission he had decided that his future wife should know how to dance. Lucky for me, I had taken a semester of ballroom in high school.

Now, we make a point of going dancing at least once a month, and I'm making a point of taking some more ballroom in college since I want to be able to dance as well as he can (he can even move his hips better than I can!).






2. Hiking!

On our first date, we went up Battle Creek Falls. Andrew decided it would be fun to climb along a tiny little ridge that was basically on the side of a cliff and then make it to a little overview area. For some reason, despite my fear of heights, I decided it would be a good idea to go with him. I'm glad I did. The view was gorgeous!!

While we were up there some guy in a blue shirt and a red hat took a picture of us and was waving for us to come down. Not sure why he wanted us to come down, we decided to just stay up there.

(In retrospect, he was probably just trying to give us a copy of the picture or get permission to post it or something... I don't know. Regardless, now we jokingly refer to stalkers as being in blue shirts and a red hat. Or was it a red shirt with a blue hat?)

We went on several hiking dates after that, but when Andrew proposed it was at the top of the Battle Creek Falls :)
He had his brother Tom go ahead of us and leave a bouquet of roses and lilies (lilies are my favorite flower) for me and a picnic lunch for the two of us, and then when we got up there Andrew got down on one knee and asked me to marry him!! Of course, I said yes :)