As previously documented in the last post, our week did not start well in the illness department. Well, to quote Sean Connery from Indiana Jones, "Our situation has not improved." Following Braden, Logan got sick on Monday night and though we thought it was a one night thing, he proved us wrong by providing a new upholstering job to the inside of our van yesterday afternoon. This was followed by Shannon going down last night. All of these things combined with the "regular" life of having four kids caused me to reflect on how we got this point. I then realized, I have never recorded anywhere how Shannon and I met, started dating and ended up married. That might be important. So, if that story doesn't interest you, Danae and Lamar have some beautiful pictures of Maine and New Hampshire up on their blog that might be of interest. Otherwise, OUR STORY BEGINS...
The first time I remember becoming aware of Shannon was when I started playing tennis every Monday night after FHE following my mission. I played doubles with Brian Taylor, Adam Layton, Boyd Bryce/Heath Brown every week. Around that time, Brian Taylor was dating Shannon. I would love to report that our first meeting was love at first sight, but instead my opinion was that anyone who would date Brian Taylor probably wasn't for me. Great tennis player...I hope he doesn't know about this blog. Anyone who knows Brian Taylor...great guy just very different from me. (There is no good way out of this so we are just going to leave it hanging out in the air like that and go on.) Shannon, meanwhile, was not all that impressed with someone who would paint their face, put a Horrible Gila Hankie on their head and yell into a megaphone all through basketball games. There just wasn't a lot to get her excited about a guy who would lead the student section in yelling the Fat Albert, "HEY HEY HEYYY!!!" every time one guy touched the ball. (That was a great game. He was one of their better players and we had him so frustrated he was totally ineffective by the end of the game. This was right up there with the Vidal Sassoon guy from MCC. Good times. Anyway, I digress.) So not a lot happened until Choir tour. On our way home, I went and sat by her because my seat mate, Spencer Bigler, had a female admirer who sat on both of us until I moved. (I don't mean to imply anything about weight here, it just got very uncomfortable being a third wheel while simultaneously having a human being in your lap.) We had a great time and my friend Janelle DeWitt suggested I ask her out. I did. When I asked her out, she told me she had had a dream about me. That's right folks...I am the man of her dreams. Of course the dream was that I was throwing rocks at her to get her attention so...I don't know what that means.
Our first date was a triple date with Mike Bradley and Becky Phillips and Preston Bigler and Nancy Everett. We had dinner that was symbolic of all of our missions. Ok, we were stretching it quite a bit because dinner was home made pizzas on English Muffins (England) with Canadian Bacon (Canada) and some kind of guava juice (Brazil). Let's just say, I don't think the girls had an amazing cultural experience that night. We had a great time and at the end of the date, I was so smooth and told her, "Now don't go getting all weird on me now." Aren't I a great communicator? What I was saying was that I didn't want her to ignore me the next day. She took it to mean that I was saying, don't be surprised when I ignore tomorrow. Right there we should have seen what our ability to communicate with each other was going to be like.
Two weeks later, we were at my apartment and I kissed her for the first time. Actually, I was moving in when she got tired of waiting and closed the distance with lightning speed. An interesting side note is that Shannon's sister and her husband bought that house about two years ago. I am glad for her sake that she married me. That could have been awfully weird for her. It's a little weird even though we are married.
The fact that she stuck with me after we had dated a couple of months is truly amazing in retrospect. We started dating during my holy month of March. This is known to others as the NCAA basketball tournament or March Madness. During these games, Shannon was only able to get about 50% of my attention...ok 40%...25?...all right more like 10. In fact there was one particularly low point in our relationship. The last night I would be in Thatcher before moving to Mesa for the summer, Shannon said, "I don't care what we do tonight, but I don't want to watch basketball." Through a chain of events we ended up watching basketball. Nice Ryan. Also, my choice in clothes was nearly an insurmountable barrier. For our first date, she got dressed up, and I wore...my dress baseball cap and plaid baggy shorts. Another low light occured during an institute class we went to together. I got up that morning and needed to do laundry desperately. So my ensemble that day was a long sleeve button up dress shirt and cut off sweats. Wow, it is truly still embarressing to admit that. Bottom line, when I moved to Mesa, I was barely hanging by a thread. I had been there a week and was coming back to Thatcher for the weekend. I didn't know it, but she was planning on breaking up with me unless some kind of sign was received. Well, I was living with my Uncle Jack and his son, my cousin Michael, saved me. I told him I needed to get a good outfit to wear down to Thatcher and surprise Shannon with some actual good taste. Michael is the coolest, snappiest (I know it is 2008, but I like that word) dresser I know. He went shopping with me and that outfit proved to be the sign she was looking for. Disaster averted.
A week later, Shannon moved to Mesa as well and we enjoyed a summer working in the city and spending most evenings together. I feel bad about the kind of house guest I was to my uncle and aunt. At the time I was oblivious, but I didn't volunteer to help out at all that I can remember. I basically slept there and ate there very occasionally. In fact, one night my grandmother, who also lived there, was at the dinner table when I was actually eating with the family. She asked if I was going over to visit "that girl". (My grandmother is terrible with names. I was usually Renny half the time.) I said that I was and she asked, "You like her don't you?" I again said yes and she said, "I could tell. You seem pretty hot for her." My uncle said, "MOTHER?!?!?" "Well he does." I think I then, red faced, brought up the subject of rising gas prices. I mean where do you go with that with your grandmother?
Following that summer and all the arguments, great dates and serious discussions that occured, we came back to EAC for one more semester with the intention of getting married over the Christmas break. The thing is, we didn't tell anybody else this. Shannon's dad was apparently telling her mother that if we weren't going to get engaged, we needed to break it off. People at EAC were shocked there still was no ring to be found. It was an interesting time. Finally, on October 10, we got engaged. Then we really started fighting. I don't know how engaged people ever manage to get married. Shannon said she wanted her colors to be pink and forest green. I, like a typical moron said, "Pink?" That led to a month long stretch where our colors were going to be Red, White and Black. I still think that would have been classy, but finally we had the discussion where she told me she hated those colors and I admitted that I really couldn't care less as long as there was that ice cream/seven up drink at the reception. Somehow, we didn't kill each other and we made it to January 4, 1996. People often reflect on what they did the night before their wedding. Some have deep introspection, others party with friends. I ironed clothes while watching the original Planet of the Apes movies with my cousin Michael. There was a marathon on TBS.
The day of the wedding was awesome. We had a wonderful ceremony and then we went to the luncheon. Unfortunately, I had promised her brother David that I would get him a corn dog because he probably wouldn't like anything at the luncheon. We went to three different AM/PMs and they were all out. Unbelievable. Anyway, we were late to our own luncheon and everybody ate without us. One of only two blemishes on the day. Since we had scheduled our reception on Saturday and got married on a Thursday, we then went goofy golfing and then to the movie Sabrina. The second blemish occured when we went to check into our hotel. We didn't know, but they required a $250 deposit if you didn't have a credit card. I did not. We had to drive around Tempe desparately looking for an ATM. Luckily we found one.
I can't believe that was almost 13 years ago. Life has definitely changed a lot in that time. I am grateful that wonderful woman looked past the idiot exterior I had and unfortunately too often still have and decided to marry me. Today, she is feeling like crap and still having to take care of two kids at home including a baby. I am going to owe her big when I get home. I sure am glad I didn't push that color thing for the reception. After a day like today, that almost definitely would have come up at some point.
The first time I remember becoming aware of Shannon was when I started playing tennis every Monday night after FHE following my mission. I played doubles with Brian Taylor, Adam Layton, Boyd Bryce/Heath Brown every week. Around that time, Brian Taylor was dating Shannon. I would love to report that our first meeting was love at first sight, but instead my opinion was that anyone who would date Brian Taylor probably wasn't for me. Great tennis player...I hope he doesn't know about this blog. Anyone who knows Brian Taylor...great guy just very different from me. (There is no good way out of this so we are just going to leave it hanging out in the air like that and go on.) Shannon, meanwhile, was not all that impressed with someone who would paint their face, put a Horrible Gila Hankie on their head and yell into a megaphone all through basketball games. There just wasn't a lot to get her excited about a guy who would lead the student section in yelling the Fat Albert, "HEY HEY HEYYY!!!" every time one guy touched the ball. (That was a great game. He was one of their better players and we had him so frustrated he was totally ineffective by the end of the game. This was right up there with the Vidal Sassoon guy from MCC. Good times. Anyway, I digress.) So not a lot happened until Choir tour. On our way home, I went and sat by her because my seat mate, Spencer Bigler, had a female admirer who sat on both of us until I moved. (I don't mean to imply anything about weight here, it just got very uncomfortable being a third wheel while simultaneously having a human being in your lap.) We had a great time and my friend Janelle DeWitt suggested I ask her out. I did. When I asked her out, she told me she had had a dream about me. That's right folks...I am the man of her dreams. Of course the dream was that I was throwing rocks at her to get her attention so...I don't know what that means.
Our first date was a triple date with Mike Bradley and Becky Phillips and Preston Bigler and Nancy Everett. We had dinner that was symbolic of all of our missions. Ok, we were stretching it quite a bit because dinner was home made pizzas on English Muffins (England) with Canadian Bacon (Canada) and some kind of guava juice (Brazil). Let's just say, I don't think the girls had an amazing cultural experience that night. We had a great time and at the end of the date, I was so smooth and told her, "Now don't go getting all weird on me now." Aren't I a great communicator? What I was saying was that I didn't want her to ignore me the next day. She took it to mean that I was saying, don't be surprised when I ignore tomorrow. Right there we should have seen what our ability to communicate with each other was going to be like.
Two weeks later, we were at my apartment and I kissed her for the first time. Actually, I was moving in when she got tired of waiting and closed the distance with lightning speed. An interesting side note is that Shannon's sister and her husband bought that house about two years ago. I am glad for her sake that she married me. That could have been awfully weird for her. It's a little weird even though we are married.
The fact that she stuck with me after we had dated a couple of months is truly amazing in retrospect. We started dating during my holy month of March. This is known to others as the NCAA basketball tournament or March Madness. During these games, Shannon was only able to get about 50% of my attention...ok 40%...25?...all right more like 10. In fact there was one particularly low point in our relationship. The last night I would be in Thatcher before moving to Mesa for the summer, Shannon said, "I don't care what we do tonight, but I don't want to watch basketball." Through a chain of events we ended up watching basketball. Nice Ryan. Also, my choice in clothes was nearly an insurmountable barrier. For our first date, she got dressed up, and I wore...my dress baseball cap and plaid baggy shorts. Another low light occured during an institute class we went to together. I got up that morning and needed to do laundry desperately. So my ensemble that day was a long sleeve button up dress shirt and cut off sweats. Wow, it is truly still embarressing to admit that. Bottom line, when I moved to Mesa, I was barely hanging by a thread. I had been there a week and was coming back to Thatcher for the weekend. I didn't know it, but she was planning on breaking up with me unless some kind of sign was received. Well, I was living with my Uncle Jack and his son, my cousin Michael, saved me. I told him I needed to get a good outfit to wear down to Thatcher and surprise Shannon with some actual good taste. Michael is the coolest, snappiest (I know it is 2008, but I like that word) dresser I know. He went shopping with me and that outfit proved to be the sign she was looking for. Disaster averted.
A week later, Shannon moved to Mesa as well and we enjoyed a summer working in the city and spending most evenings together. I feel bad about the kind of house guest I was to my uncle and aunt. At the time I was oblivious, but I didn't volunteer to help out at all that I can remember. I basically slept there and ate there very occasionally. In fact, one night my grandmother, who also lived there, was at the dinner table when I was actually eating with the family. She asked if I was going over to visit "that girl". (My grandmother is terrible with names. I was usually Renny half the time.) I said that I was and she asked, "You like her don't you?" I again said yes and she said, "I could tell. You seem pretty hot for her." My uncle said, "MOTHER?!?!?" "Well he does." I think I then, red faced, brought up the subject of rising gas prices. I mean where do you go with that with your grandmother?
Following that summer and all the arguments, great dates and serious discussions that occured, we came back to EAC for one more semester with the intention of getting married over the Christmas break. The thing is, we didn't tell anybody else this. Shannon's dad was apparently telling her mother that if we weren't going to get engaged, we needed to break it off. People at EAC were shocked there still was no ring to be found. It was an interesting time. Finally, on October 10, we got engaged. Then we really started fighting. I don't know how engaged people ever manage to get married. Shannon said she wanted her colors to be pink and forest green. I, like a typical moron said, "Pink?" That led to a month long stretch where our colors were going to be Red, White and Black. I still think that would have been classy, but finally we had the discussion where she told me she hated those colors and I admitted that I really couldn't care less as long as there was that ice cream/seven up drink at the reception. Somehow, we didn't kill each other and we made it to January 4, 1996. People often reflect on what they did the night before their wedding. Some have deep introspection, others party with friends. I ironed clothes while watching the original Planet of the Apes movies with my cousin Michael. There was a marathon on TBS.
The day of the wedding was awesome. We had a wonderful ceremony and then we went to the luncheon. Unfortunately, I had promised her brother David that I would get him a corn dog because he probably wouldn't like anything at the luncheon. We went to three different AM/PMs and they were all out. Unbelievable. Anyway, we were late to our own luncheon and everybody ate without us. One of only two blemishes on the day. Since we had scheduled our reception on Saturday and got married on a Thursday, we then went goofy golfing and then to the movie Sabrina. The second blemish occured when we went to check into our hotel. We didn't know, but they required a $250 deposit if you didn't have a credit card. I did not. We had to drive around Tempe desparately looking for an ATM. Luckily we found one.
I can't believe that was almost 13 years ago. Life has definitely changed a lot in that time. I am grateful that wonderful woman looked past the idiot exterior I had and unfortunately too often still have and decided to marry me. Today, she is feeling like crap and still having to take care of two kids at home including a baby. I am going to owe her big when I get home. I sure am glad I didn't push that color thing for the reception. After a day like today, that almost definitely would have come up at some point.
Dude - we stayed at the Cloud Nine Hotel in Globe our first night. We were high society.
ReplyDeleteGood story - and good grief, look at Shannon's hair in that old photo - she was Rapunzel!
Thanks for the free publicity. We've had a record number of hits on our site. I love the story. No matter how many times I hear it, it's just as funny. I sure am glad it all worked out. I would hate to see what it would be like without you in the family.
ReplyDeleteI don't think I've actually heard the play-by-play story of you two met. It makes for a nice (& quite comical) story! The pictures are classic! I can still remember you like that just as if it was yesterday.... glad we're still friends.
ReplyDeleteHa-ha! Thanks for the shout-out, Ryan! I remember that night well. You telling me that you weren't "in Shannon's league" ... my having to use a number of sports metaphors and do quite a bit of convincing to get you to finally get up enough courage to ask her out. Oh, the celebration that followed her saying yes!!! :)
ReplyDelete