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)

Stalker Muffins

Currently I am sitting at a table in "the house" with Meg, Nate and Katie. I should be doing my psychology homework but I decided I would give this a shot instead. I'm listening to the Tron soundtrack in the hopes that it will help inspire me. I've wanted to update my blog for quite some time now but just haven't been able to convince myself to do it. I started a post yesterday but because it was fast sunday and I was so anxious I couldn't finish it. (I get really anxious when I'm hungry) Following is the extent of what I wrote on Sunday:


So over the weekend I almost shaved. I had determined that on Friday, before Meg and I went to the temple that I would shave. There were a couple of reasons for this which I don't feel like going into right now. Long story short, I didn't end up shaving which I'm happy about.
I like having a beard and I know others like it too. At least I would assume so because I get a lot of compliments on it.
Saturday evening I went to go play a game called spy versus spy. You get two teams and head off to a mall. Each team is wearing a different color shirt. In our case it was red and blue team. I was on red. You get to the mall and break up. Each person has three lives and your goal is to kill the other team.

I got to this point in my explanation and got discouraged and extremely anxious so I just stopped. I thought y'all might enjoy reading that. So now to pick up where I left off. You kill an opponent by sneaking up behind them and grabbing their shoulder without them seeing you. As we all split up I was determined not to be the first to die and if possibly not die at all. While walking around I was rather paranoid as might be expected. To make a long and boring story short and less boring I died much more quickly than I wanted. I actually was really mad after I lost my last life. I walked off sulking and thinking about how much I hated this game. I was a rather poor sport to say the least. Luckily this wore off eventually and I took to taking creeper pictures of other people as they were playing. Now that I look back on it I'm sure people were a little creeped out as I was leaning over railings with my DSLR snapping pictures of people. Oh well!

Today Meg and I watched another episode of Downton Abby. We're slowly making our way through season two. We are now only three episodes behind. One more super fun thing about today that I must tell. First some background. All weekend Meg has been teling me about this new muffin recipe she's excited to try out for this week but she wouldn't tell me what this amazing recipe was. I found out today. Chocolate Chip Pancake Muffins! They are so amazing, let me tell you! I ate one....and another...and a few more after that. I felt sorta bad about eating so many of the but I just couldn't help myself. Speaking of which, that muffin you see in this picture didn't last more than 5 seconds after I took this picture.

Dreams, Parking jobs and Tithing

Have you ever had one of those dreams where it was so real and so emotionally charged that when you woke up you were still feeling the way you were in your dream? I had one of those last night and it was terrible. It's left me feeling all weird and not good inside.

On a lighter note, last Sunday I came home after church to find Anne's car parked in a very strange place. I walked to the back door because the front door was blocked. When I walked in, Anne asked "Do you know where my car is?" I thought she was joking but no, she really had no idea where her car was. So I showed her and we both were completely confused. I found out later that my mom had moved it there so my dad could get out of the driveway. She didn't want to drive it to far because all the windows were covered in snow. She parked it there in hopes that the sun would warm it up a bit so she could scrape it off. I assume it worked at least to an extent because I didn't have to much difficulty scraping off all the snow for Anne before she left.

One final little thing I want to get out there is that paying tithing really does bring great blessings! I have head knowledge of this principle but it amazes me that each time I move forward and do it, I receive such great blessings.

Heater Thinking

I don't have a lot to say today but I felt I should say something. It is currently 11:10 in the morning and I have yet to do anything really productive today. I woke up at 8:45 and went upstairs to see what I could find to eat. Instead of eating, I ended up with a pillow and blanket on the heater waiting for it to turn on. I spent a good little while just laying there on the heater thinking about life.

I have battled seasonal depression since about 8th grade. Some years are worse than others but it always seems to come. This year has been the best I can remember. I should think there are a number of things that have contributed to this. Even though this year has been a great one, I have still had some hard days/nights. I add nights because feelings of depression seem to be amplified in the evening. Last night was one of those nights for me. I don't know what caused it but I just wasn't feeling very good. Depression is such an interesting thing. It's not something you can accurately explain to someone who hasn't experienced it first hand. For me it manifests in an overall lack of enthusiasm for life. Nothing sounds fun and I usually don't eat much because I don't have an appetite and nothing sounds good. While in this state it's extremely easy to become self critical and to search out and then blow up every little flaw I have and everything I'm not doing quite right. I can't help but think that it's Satan who suggests these thoughts to me to help keep me in a downward spiral of emotion. I must say, he's very good at what he does and I have to work hard to pull myself out. This morning on the heater I found myself in one of these downward spirals. It was my sweet mother who came to the rescue. She'd noticed that these past few days I've been a little down and I'm sure she felt something from me this morning. We talked over some things and I got up and got going for the day.

That being said, I'm doing a bit better now.

It's good to keep in mind that life isn't meant to be easy. We're here to struggle a bit and work through challenges and problems. It's also comforting to know that we don't have to do this all alone. We have people all around us who are willing to help. We can always call upon our Heavenly Father for strength and guidance and look to our Savior's example.

Yesterday Meg and I ran some errands before going up to Park City. I lost my swimsuit so we went to Old Navy to find me a new one so I could participate in hot tubbing at Katie's house. We then went to Office Max so Meg could get more ink for her printer so she can do all of the insane amounts of printing this semester for her classes. I must say that Office Max is one of my favorite stores. It smells super good and there are so many fun things that I want there. Anyway, after this we went up to Foothill Village and I finally got my watch batter replaced! I've wanted to do this since I got home from my mission and Meg helped me to remember to do it yesterday.

Park City was fun. We played games, hot tubbed, and watched Jumanji.

New Years

It's hard to believe that the new year has come so quickly. I've now been home from my mission for nearly 10 months and so much has happened. It's strange to think that a year ago I was in Louisiana doing missionary work all day every day. It almost feels like a dream or like it never really happened. Yet at the same time it feels like just yesterday that I was there. I am so grateful for my experiences on my mission that have provided some serious support and comfort during the past few months. I'm sure I will continue to see the many ways my mission has blessed me.
New Years is classically a time to set goals and figure out what you want to accomplish in the upcoming year. This year however, I really haven't set a lot of goals. Partly because I didn't really think to much about it and partly because I'm tired of setting goals and either forgetting about them or failing to achieve them. This year I want to set smaller goals and just go from there. For one thing, I'm really working on being better about my daily scripture study. Late last night Meg and I were talking, as happens quite often, and I brought up how I'm not the best at scripture study. (just as a side not, I find it so helpful to talk to people about things. It just provides a way to think out loud and get some outside input.) During this conversation I remembered something someone had said during church last week that really stuck with me. I tend to get overwhelmed by how not good I feel a studying and I let this keep me from doing anything at all. I need to simply remember that just reading from the scriptures is just fine and for now, if that's all I can do, that's good enough. Following is a link to an amazing Mormon Message dealing with New Years.
 - Look not behind thee -

For New Years I sort of threw a black-light party that was not the most exciting thing in the world. I just didn't advertise it really at all which is part of the problem. I was thinking that I would be super happy with a smaller group of people on New Years but I was wrong. The good thing is that I now know that for New Years I want to be with lots of people. That's not to say that I didn't enjoy myself because I did.

Life is just so amazing. I'm in awe at how much the Lord has blessed me.