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You can't tell from the small picture, but there are some really awesome books behind Adam. (It was a really fun study group!) Also, check out the beard. Isn't he cute! (Though Kristine is still kind of glad that it was only temporary.) We went on a road trip to Denver with Cami Slade (Who is also getting married this summer. Yay!)
But we didn't really start spending a lot of time together until we started singing together in an a cappella group called Upbeat.
Kristine knew that she felt really comfortable talking to Adam and loved hanging out with him. But she was having trouble getting over a previous relationship, so it took her a little while to agree to dating. Fortunately, she finally saw the light. We had our first date on March 4, 2005 (Disco Night at Classic Skating) and started dating steadily on October 10, 2005.
While still in the "never been kissed" phase, Kristine managed to contract mononucleosis a few months before she started dating Adam. (She's still a little bitter about the fact that she didn't even manage to contract the "kissing disease" in a more fun way!) So our first kiss was postponed until May 29, 2006. Not only was it Memorial Day, but it was Kristine's grandparents' wedding anniversary. (They had one of the best relationships of anyone Kristine has ever met, so a first kiss was a fun way to memorialize the occasion. Here's to hoping that, in 50 years, our relationship is still as wonderful as theirs was!) THE ENGAGEMENTS We first got engaged at a Passover celebration on April 10. Adam was playing the part of the patriarch at a seder service. At one point after the meal, everyone searches for the afikomen, a piece of matzah bread that has been previously hidden. Once a person finds the afikomen, the patriarch barters with the finder over the price for which it can be "redeemed". Kristine found the afikomen, and decided that the redemption price would be a ring. Adam had just gone ring shopping the week before, so he conveniently happened to have one.
But the timing wasn't quite right, and we decided to postpone the engagement for a little while. Adam proposed again on February 14, after a perfectly delightful Valentine's Day. This time, the engagement stuck. But just to be sure, we've decided that maybe we should just keep proposing to each other until we actually get married. Since Kristine proposed the first time, and Adam the second, it was Kristine's turn again on Leap Year. (An English tradition identifies February 29th as a day on which girls can propose to guys.) Perhaps it wasn't quite as romantic as some of the other proposals since she had been on a plane all day flying out to Virginia Beach to visit his family, but it was still fun!
April 7, 2008: Before Kristine's Passover surprise, Adam had bought an inexpensive ring so he would have one to propose with and still allow Kristine to pick out the one she wanted. (Kristine really liked that plan, in case anyone reading this is thinking of proposing to someone and is looking for ideas.) So we went shopping together, and by a small miracle, we found one that Kristine adored in the first store. (Kristine's usually a little indecisive!) The store had to send it out for the stone to be set, and they said that it would be ready on Monday, April 7th, at 5:00pm. When the store called Adam at 2:00pm and told him it was ready, he knew he had three hours to pick it up and propose before Kristine would be expecting it. He managed to lure her out of her research lab on the pretext of wanting to work on some music for a minute. He serenaded her on the guitar with a song she liked, and then let it play on his computer while they danced. It was so romantic that Kristine got caught up in it and didn't realize he was proposing until he brought out the ring.
At the request of a few friends, here are some pictures. It's a white gold ring with a princess-cut solitaire and three small diamonds on each side. (And Kristine has a new-found respect for all diamond photographers.) Kristine was excited enough that no research got done for the rest of the day. Instead, she went around the Talmage building to show it off to her brother, her uncle, and a bunch of other people in the Computer Science Department. (In such a male dominated field, there aren't a whole lot of students who bounce around showing off new engagement rings. Kristine had fun trying to personally make up for the lack of chromosomally dictated demonstrations of engagement excitement.)
April 22, 2008: At this moment, Adam is finishing a slice of carrot cake that he got for his birthday. If you've lived in the Provo area, maybe you've heard of the Chef's Table restaurant. Kristine took him there on his birthday. He was having a busy day, like most of the days that surrounded it, and he was tempted to skip all the celebrating until the evening, or go somewhere like Denny's where no one would care if he worked while he was eating. But Kristine seemed to have her heart set on the Chef's Table, so off we went. (One would really think that with all this surprise proposing going on, we'd get a little more suspicious. But Kristine and Adam are good at making any strange behavior look like a manifestation of our usual idiosyncrasies, so we haven't started catching on to each other yet.) Adam had never been to this restaurant before. It is high-class. We sat at a corner table with a fresh rose in a vase, next to a picture window that ran from the floor up to the ceiling, overlooking a tree-filled neighborhood. Adam ordered a pasta dish, and when he asked for a spoon, he didn't have to explain to the waiter the "proper" way to eat pasta with silverware. When Kristine left the table for a minute, a waitress came by and folded her napkin into a little pyramid. Adam mentioned that Kristine would be back in a minute, and the waitress just smiled and said, "Oh, I know. We just always do that." We sat and talked about wedding plans (even lunch at the Chef's Table can't seem to push that out of our minds) while eating the most fabulous food. In fact, Adam should have been thinking about getting back to work, but while Kristine was gone, he asked a waiter for a dessert menu. As it turned out, Kristine was a few steps ahead of him along that path. She pretended to agree with him on a dessert and the waitress hurried off, only to return a minute later with a birthday cake on a silver tray, along with this:
...which, of course, was even sweeter than the cake—which, of course, Adam is still enjoying. But the ring, of course, was just the proverbial icing on the cake, the real treat and best gift ever being... .jpg)
Stay tuned for more proposal stories as we get closer to the day!
We'd also like to thank everyone in our wonderful families! We'll get pictures of them up here soon, too. And we've been dating for so long that I'm sure I've forgotten someone.
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