My Side of the UnKnown Story

Once more, a shocker of all shockers, Bryan is actually going to BLOG. It is about time, I guess, but my wonderful Dani does such a wonderful job, I did not want to (and hopefully don't) bring down the high quality of this blog. If you have not noticed, we have been writing down a bunch of things about when we met, at least we will have them written down in at least one place. So I am going to chime in with a little bit of the story from my point of view (since it happened to me).

My first trip to Utah to meet Danielle was pretty darn good. I loved her before I came, I really wanted to be near her, and it was far being such a distance from her. Our first visit only increased these feelings, I loved her even more after it. Some of the highlights of that visit were first of all meeting her (see earlier blog for details), others were going to the Temple together, and meeting her family for the first time. At my first family "Sunday Family Dinner" just about everyone in the whole family was there, and not only did I get to meet them, but before dinner started, I "got" the "chance" to go around the room and name everyone by name. Now for those of you who do not understand the magnitude of this, you need to take into account a couple of things. This was the first time that I was meeting 75 percent of the people there, and there were over 25 people there. Lets just say it was a pretty nerve-racking event, I really did not want to mess up on anyones name. This was not, however, the most stressful/harrowing thing that happened.

Nope, having to name everyone in the family was pretty easy compared to what went on the day that I left. By the end of my visit I new that I wanted to ask Danielle to marry me, but that she wanted to meet my family before we got to that point. So we knew that she would meet my family the next month when we went to Oregon, but that it would happen before I came out to Utah again. When I came out from California to visit Dani the first time, my wonderful sister Kristen, pulled some strings and got me a room at the Deseret Towers (where she worked), so I was staying there by myself. On the morning that I was going home (a wonderful wintry Tuesday) before Dani picked me up, I knew that I wanted to talk to Danielle's Father, and ask him if I could ask for Danielle hand in marriage. This was the first time that I had ever come near this point, and was very very nervous. In fact while cleaning up my room to leave, and for Dani to come pick me up, I was so nervous that I threw up twice. When Dani picked me up I told her that I wanted to stop by her parents house and talk to her Dad, as we walked from her house to her parents, Dani thought I was going to pass out. She told me later that my hands were all clammy and I was as white as anyone she had ever seen (Jon, so white someone could consider me a snow demon). That was before I ever got into the house. I was so very lucky, because when we got there the only people around were Dani's mom and dad, so I went and asked Joe if I could speak with him, he smiled his knowing smile and said sure while escorting me to the music room. He, being the very wise person he is, knew what was going on (I guess it has happened enough times), so to help me out he first shared a story to try and help me calm down, (or to stretch out the torture). The story had to do with the fact that sometime the time leading up to an event is worse that the event, and it was. I told him that I loved his daughter and wanted to ask her to marry me, and he just smiled and said that it would be a wonderful thing. I was so happy, it was one big step towards Danielle and I starting out our lives together and being together for the rest of eternity.