Air shows, cabins and Church talks

Memorial Day weekend was so fun! I'm going to attempt to go through it without boring anyone to death while still hitting on the best points.

Thursday was my last day of work which meant Friday was the beginning of a wonderful weekend. I drove up early Friday morning to Syracuse to meet up with Meg and her family for a quick breakfast before we went to the air show at Hill Air Force Base. This was a fun new experience for me and I loved it! Also Meg and I were called to speak on Sunday with a high councilor from her home stake up in Syracuse.

Lindsey and Adriana - Photo taken by Megan McFarland

Thunderbirds

Photo by Diana McFarland

On Saturday Meg and I went and finished registering, went back to Syracuse, finished our talks for Sunday, had dinner with her family, went to Adriana's piano recital (she did a great job btw), and played a most wonderful game called "Don't eat Pete!" You set out a few M&M's and one person closes their eyes while everyone else decides which M&M is Pete. The person then proceeds to eat M&M's one at a time. When they reach for Pete everyone yells "Don't eat Pete!" It's a wonderful game.

Don't eat Pete

I ended up sleeping up in Syracuse Saturday night so Sunday morning I got up and showered and put some finishing touches on my talk. We then headed off to 11:00 church to give our talks. It was such an amazing experience. I love speaking so much, especially when I get to speak with Meg. She's a wonderful speaking and it's such a joy to listen to her. After church we got ready to head up to drop Lindsey off at Oakcrest girls camp for the week and then continue on to Meg's cabin. It was quite cold  up there. So cold that there was snow on the ground when we got there and tiny snow flurries. We made a great fire and roasted Meg's home-made marshmallows. These were also used in our hot chocolate. So good! 

Meg's Cabin Sunday night

The view off the back porch with snow 

flurry

Diana roasting one of Meg's chocolate-chip marshmallows

Monday we cleaned up the cabin and got it all ready for the summer. Later in the day we went on a walk up to a little waterfall. It was so beautiful up there. I loved it. I spent a lot of time just lazing around, napping, cuddled up to Megan, and reading. It was so relaxing. I also think it's noteworthy to mention that there was a crane up there right off the back porch sitting on her eggs. Pretty neat.

The crane on her nest

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Puck loving life at the cabin

Photo by Diana McFarland

The waterfall - picture by Diana McFarland

Change

I was so excited to be at the University of Utah this coming fall semester. I assumed that I was done with all my general education requirements at SLCC. Once spring semester was over I sat down and looked at the requirements to find that I still need one more class! It was a shocking and stressful discovery. I was really looking forward to having a nice break from school this summer but it looks like I will be taking a class. I looked through for an interesting and easy class to take to fulfill the requirement and decided on Introduction to Music. I'm taking it online which I hope will provide me with the flexibility to take a week off for getting married.

Bishop Curtis at FHE

I am so sad to see my dear singles ward bishop leave us. He and his sweet wife are heading off to South Africa to serve a mission as the executive secretary the the area presidency. I am so excited for them yet so sad that they wont be here for the wedding. On Monday we had a BBQ next door at the Richard's house as a welcome to the new Bishopric and it was really quite fun. Being a ward photographer has been a really fun calling for me. It's interesting to note the different styles of taking pictures. The other photographer is outgoing and gets people to pose and the such whereas I am getting good at taking candid shots of people. It makes me feel like a bit of a creeper as I sneak around FHE taking pictures of people without them even knowing about it. I seriously love photography and I really want to get a new camera and some new lenses. Too bad they're so expensive and I'm so poor right now. All is well however. I am very grateful for the camera and lenses I do have.

Meg at FHE getting ready to roast a mollow

In closing, Meg moved back up to Syracuse to be with her family for these last two months before the wedding. I'm happy that she gets to spend some more time with her family but at the same time I'm just so sad that I don't get to see her as much. It's only been about 3 days since she left and I'm missing her like crazy. tying this back in to photography, she is my favorite person to photograph. Anywho, I am off to bed so I can pass the time more quickly. (I am leaving for Syracuse first thing in the morning for a mothers day breakfast with Meg and her family and I'm anxious to see her)

Missing Megan and Sunsets

This has been an interesting experience having Megan gone for the past few days. I've come to more fully realize how much time I really do spend with her and how much that time means to me. I only get to talk to her for 15-20 minutes every day right before she goes to sleep. I must say that I'm really looking forward to tomorrow when I get to go pick her up from the airport.
It has been a lonely couple of days without her. My great friends have done a good job at keeping me company but unfortunately it is not quite the same as having Meg. I can hardly wait to have her back.

On Friday I went to KFC with Hailey and Karena to get some fried chicken and then we watched "The Proposal." Things like this do help to pass the time and I am greatly appreciative of their effort. Then yesterday (Saturday) I went to a super fun birthday lunch for Dominique at the Cheesecake Factory. This was a first for me and I was not disappointed.

Later in the day I headed off to pick up some prints from Walgreens to put up on the ward photo board. On my way down I saw that there was an amazing sunset/landscape scene right in front of me. I realized that I'd left my camera at home so at the next light I flipped around and sped off towards home hoping that I would make it  in time. I got my camera and sped off to some high ground so I could capture this sunset. I took a few pictures and then headed off to get my order from Walgreens. On my way back up 400 South I had the thought..."I should go watch this sunset in the hopes of it being something great." So that's what I did. I drove up to Red Butte and parked. I ended up walking up behind the new Natural History museum to get even higher and I am quite happy with what I got.

Quick Update

So it's crazy to see how long it's been since my last post. Over a month! That being said, life has been busy. I've thought a lot about writing again but never really sat down and done it. (obviously) At the moment I'm sitting in my brothers office getting ready to head off to institute. After my morning classes today I walked up 1700 South to meet John and we went to lunch. I've been sitting here trying to do homework but failing miserably, hence I'm updating my blog.
Meg is currently on a plane headed to Dallas and then to New Orleans. I am so excited for her to be going to Louisiana.

A few hours have now passed and Meg is on her final flight to New Orleans. I just got back from the dentist. On that note, I'm happy to say that using a Sonicare toothbrush really does something. I got one for Christmas last year and I've been using it ever since. I was so curious to see if the dentist would really notice a difference so I didn't say anything about my getting this toothbrush. The cleaning started and I was shocked when the hygienist made a comment on how clean my teeth were and how healthy my gums looked. I was pleasantly surprised.

I am coming up on the end of the semester and I couldn't be happier. I am so excited for this summer! A good long break from homework will do me some good. I'm planning on working full time or close to it up until the wedding. Afterwards I don't know for sure what will happen but I'll probably keep working until school starts up again in the fall. I think this is going to be my last summer working at Larkin which means I wil probably be on the hunt for a new job at some point. All in all, life is very good.

The Engagement

It all started a few months ago when I started to think about asking for Meg's hand in marriage. As I looked forward at the calendar I saw that March 2 would fall on a Friday. This was perfect because it would be exactly six months since we first met. After realizing this, my attention soon moved on to other things and the proposal moved into the back of my mind.

Sunday the 26th of February rolled around and I realized that I hadn't made any preparations for the coming Friday. It was that Sunday night that I decided I was going do everything I could to make this happen.

Right after class on Monday I headed straight down to Shane Co. on the corner of State Street and 7200 South to take a look at some rings. I'm sure I had a look of total bewilderment as Cody (the ring specialist) walked over to help me out. We soon had my options narrowed down to two rings at which point Cody went into the vault to get a few diamonds. With the diamonds in the rings it was easier for me to make the final decision. At this point I realized that if I didn't leave soon I would be late to institute. (This would be bad because Meg would ask questions about why I was late and I didn't know how I would answer...) So I had them reserve the ring for me so I could come and make a down-payment on it later that day.

Tuesday I spent about 15 minutes working up the courage to call her dad to set up a time to ask him for permission to marry his daughter. I finally just dialed his number and went for it. I don't know why I was SO nervous about calling but I was. I soon had set to talk with him the next day at 11:00 am. Right as I hung up the phone I realized that my Wednesday class didn't get out til 10:50 and to make matters worse I had a test so I couldn't just miss it. I really didn't want to call and reschedule with John so I decided I would try to take my psychology test during my 9:00 history class.

I moved forward with my plan and waited outside my psychology class til my profesor showed up and asked her if I could take the test early and luckily she agreed. Following my test I headed straight up to the Ogden Regional Medical Center to talk to Meg's dad. I was surprised by how calm I was going in to talk to him. All in all it was a really great experience. After all, he did say yes. After institute Meg and I headed back to her place and I was having a very difficult time not telling her all about the visit I had with her dad. For the first time ever I wasn't totally bummed out when Meg had to leave for work. The reason being her ring was ready and all I needed to do was get a bit more money out of my savings account to finish paying for it and then drive down there to pick it up.

Somehow I managed to get everything done in a week and even more amazing than that, against all odds, I was able to keep all this information from Meg. I really don't know how I did it because not only do I talk to Meg about everything but I can't lie to her. But it happened!

Friday came and I had such a hard time focusing in class knowing what I was going to be doing in just a few hours. Once my classes were over I headed home and called up The Flower Patch to see if they had any cala lilies. (These are Meg's favorite flower) When I knew they did I headed down to pick up six of them, one for every month I've known Meg. Then it was off to pick her up for snowshoeing. When she opened the door and saw all her cala lilies I'm guessing she was pretty happy due to the fact that she promptly closed the distance between us and kissed me.

We pulled all our stuff together and headed up Big Cottonwood Canyon. The whole way up the canyon I was getting really anxious to get going on the trail. Soon enough we had our snowshoes on and were making our way up to Doughnut Falls. We ended up having to plow through a good eight inches of fresh snow for the last part which was very exhausting. When we finally made it up to the doughnut I was super nervous. I started to unpack my tripod and camera all the while wondering if I should just pop the question right there or wait to do it how I'd planned. I chose to do the latter. I got the tripod set up and had Meg stand off a little ways so I could get the camera focused. As she was walking away I quickly pulled the ring out of my camera bag and put it in my sweatshirt. I then set the timer and ran up to where Meg was standing. My mind was racing at this point and I felt like I was in a dream. I remember kneeling down in the snow and saying "Megan, will you marry me?" It's amazing to me how little I actually remember. I think I was just so nervous and excited and happy that it overloaded my senses. What followed was the happiest moment of my life up to this point. Meg said yes and I carefully slipped the ring I'd picked out onto her finger and gave/received the biggest and best hug ever!
If you want to here Meg's side of the story go here.

Molten Chocolate Cake

What a week it's been. I was so happy to spend a bunch of time with Meg. Yesterday (Monday) Meg and I were sitting at the dining room table "doing homework" which meant that she was semi focused on homework while I was totally distracted with Facebook and the such. I was looking around on Pinterest (yes i know it's crazy that I have a Pinterest account...don't worry about it) and I came across a wonderful thing. Molten Chocolate Cakes!

I showed them to Meg and she looked at the recipe and declared that we would make these after he class if I would go to the store and pick up some semi-sweet chocolate. I readily agreed. After taking her to class I headed to Dan's to get the chocolate and some vanilla ice cream.

Before picking up Meg I stoped by FHE to take some pictures of the dodgeball game unfolding there.

I also stopped by Victoria's house to pick up some souffle dishes for the cakes and ended up talking to her mom for a while which was fun due to the fact that I haven't seen her in ages. It was then off to get Meg from class and begin the adventure of making these cakes.

They were quite easy to make and tasted so good!
We ended up with and extra cake so we decided to take it back down to Victoria's along with the other three clean souffle dishes. When we got there Victoria invited us in. We ended up sitting and talking with her and Dallin (her boyfriend) for a good little while. It was great. Anywho, it was great fun.


Later last night I actually did do some homework. I had Meg help me practice the waltz for my ballroom class.

We also spent a good chunk of time taking pictures of ourselves using my cameras timer which waits for 10 seconds and then will take up to 10 consecutive pictures. It was like having our own personal photo booth!

Fancy Dinner Party

This last weekend brought an amazing event. The Fancy Dinner Party. I've been looking forward to this for quite some time. It was quite a long time ago that Meg and Katie started talking about doing this.

I made my small contribution to this whole thing by helping Meg prepare her amazing soup and a delicious cake. (By helping Meg I mean I was mostly there for moral support as she made everything)

Following are some of the pictures I took while there. Please enjoy.

 (Photo taken by Meg McFarland)

 (Photo taken by Katie Butters)

 (Photo taken by Katie Butters)