“Wanna tell you about the girl I love. My she looks so fine” Hey Hey What Can I Do -Led Zeppelin

It’s my Sweetheart’s birthday today.  I first saw Laura 8 years ago this March.  I had been living in Kentucky with my brother Tom and his family at the beginning of 2004.  I had several pretty sweet jobs and had decided that I was going to start looking for an apartment of my own and stay there for a while.  I even looked in to applying to the University of Kentucky to finish up school there.  In other words, I had made up my mind that I was not going back to Rexburg, Idaho.  Then, one day in early February, while taxiing in a Dash 8, I received this ridiculously overwhelming feeling that I needed to go back to Rexburg.  You know when you get those feelings from a higher power, because they are against everything that you would want them to be.  So, within the next few days I put in my two weeks at Best Buy, Regal Cinemas, and US Airways.  I told my brother and his family goodbye and set out on my way.  Getting to the ‘burg was an interesting trip, but I’ll save that story for another day.  I finally got there, though, and crashed at my new pad in the basement of the Muir house.  That Sunday I went to church with my roommates.  I was sitting in the pews on the left facing the pulpit, about half way up, in the Hinckley Building on campus.  Now, I had a pretty strict rule never to date girls in the ward, but upon scoping things out, I not only laid eyes on the girl that I would bend that rule for, I was seeing the very reason why I was prompted to go back Rexburg, Idaho…Laura Dene’ Walker.  To this day, eight years later, I can still feel the skipped heartbeats, the dry mouth, the sweaty palms.  In my mind I was envisioning myself acting as The Mask did when he first saw Tina Carlyle.  I have never, ever felt like that in my entire life.  It was the weirdest sensation.  So weird that it has been forever engraved in my memory.  So, I did what anyone would do and I took four and a half months, and several chickened out opportunities, to get up the courage to talk to her.  We had little interaction within that time.  Maybe a compliment that took far too much courage to spit out or an exchanged glance that only led to a little embarrassment.  It was finally on July 23, 2004 that I was finally able to calm my nerves long enough to have a conversation with THE most beautiful person I had ever seen.  Then I really fell in love her.  I learned that she loved the Beatles and music in general.  She loved Hiking (in fact we went the next day).  She had the sweetest voice and I recall hanging on every word she spoke.  We talked and talked all night long.  Though I was excited to see the Bourne Supremacy that evening, I was disappointed that it took me away from getting to know her even more.  The next day we went hiking at the Tetons.  Laura and I were inseparable that day.  One of my best friends, Mike Johns, was on the hike with us and casually asked me, “so, are you going to go out with this girl, or what?”   Once we got to our destination, Laura and I ran down together and jumped in the lake.  It was then that I discovered how forward this sweet little girl actually was.  While swimming out in the lake, her strap on her swimsuit “came undone” (don’t worry, nothing was seen), so I had to help her to a rock and hold her around her waist while she clasped the strap back together.  Also, on the way home, she rested her head on my shoulder and took a little nap.  Well, it worked.  By that evening our “brave little pinkies” (as Laura likes to call them) found each other and we were holding hands by the end of watching Shrek 2.  By now this story is getting long, so those of you who feel like you’ve gotten the gist of it, feel free to check out the next blog that you have waiting in another tab.  For those who wish to stay, we had Monday off from school and we wanted nothing more than to spend it together.  She had a spot reserved for her on a river rafting trip that day.  I received a call from Mike asking if I want to go rafting with him and some friends.  I asked if there was room for Laura.  He checked and there wasn’t.  Laura and I decided that we would go hiking, or something, so she called her friend and respectfully declined her seat on the trip.  Moments later I received a call from Mike telling me that someone had just dropped out of the trip and I could bring Laura.  Lo and behold, it was the same group of people.  One way or another, we would have been rafting down that river together, that afternoon.  We had a spectacular time rocking out in the car together to the likes of Queen, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, etc.  We spent that evening watching Jaws and, ironically enough, I don’t recall laughing that hard with anyone before or since.  The following week I was heading to Reno, Nevada to attend the wedding of one of my best good friends, Asa McMains.  The story of him and his wife was; they met, they dated for a short time; and they got engaged/married.  Laura and I talked about how crazy fast that is and how we would like to move a little slower.  Well, it is apparently dangerous to attend a wedding while you are dating the girl of your dreams, because you begin to get the idea that you want to go and do the same thing with her.  Sure enough, I got back, we started talking about it, and we got engaged on September 21^st.  After a mostly long distance engagement, I married the most incredible woman I’ve ever met on December 28, 2004.  This all took about the same time as Asa’s courtship, engagement and marriage, by the way.  When you hear people talk about marrying up, I didn’t just marry a couple of steps up.  It is really more like several stories up.  She is an incredible woman.  She is a very talented singer and piano player.  She is an amazing cook (the current state of my gut can attest to that).  She is awesome at turning beat up old furniture into stylish decoration.  She makes me laugh more than anyone I know.  She is cute and sweet, yet courageous and strong.  She is a most thoughtful wife.  She shares my love of music, and can mostly keep up with my obscure movie references.  Most importantly to me…SHE’S HOT!  Just kidding, she is hot, but most importantly to me; she is a shining example of motherhood.  A testament to me of Laura’s greatness is that even after a short period of time goes by that I don’t see her, when I finally do, I get that same feeling that I got eight years ago when I first saw her.  Happy Birthday, Laura.  I know that we promised not to do gifts this year, but consider this summary of how I fell in love with you and your awesomeness my gift to you.  I love you, Babe.