The Story of Me and Tim

Alright everyone!! I think the suspense effect has gone a little too far. I apologize…the truth is…I’m a lazy bum and for some reason Tim still loves me! This isn’t a typical story, it doesn’t start very romantic or special……me and Tim being engaged is the LAST THING I EXPECTED ever!!! And so we begin….So my second semester up at BYU-I wasn’t as delightsome as I had hoped. As far as getting dates and making new guyfriends, it was quite a failure. Even being desperate and OFFERING TO PAY for dates stopped working on these guys!! So I concluded that I should quit spending energy on the not-so-interesting males up at school and focus more on preparing for my future husband and becoming a better ME! So I gave up trying to impress, and everything I did, I did it for myself! I did homework, did my hair/makeup for ME rather than to catch me a man! Hahahaha pathetic boycrazy Jessica.. Anyway, I had a lovely time and made new friends with my neighbors, walked around campus like a nerd with my spikey ice shoes and with Ella (my trusty umbrella) and a giant coat that went to my knees! I received ONE valentine on valentines day…..it was from my sweet next door neighbors though it was signed “secret admirer” in my friend’s handwriting ). I concluded my (Single’s Awareness Day) with a ROMANTIC, dreamy date in the evening! I picked myself up at around 4pm and took myself down to the testing center to spend some quality time stretching my mind. Then I walked myself to the Benson Building for an extra credit science seminar…it was SOO romantic!


Even though I tried to convince myself I didn’t care about never having dates, I had my moments. When my roommate started dating a guy in our ward, I got lonely. I remember crying to my mom that I’m never gonna find my future husband and I’m so ready for him to show up and its so hard to wait for my turn. What a baby! hahaha

I returned to my studies and enjoying my time up at school, and became friends with an apartment of Army kids that my neighbor was friends with. We spent a lot of time at their apartment and I developed a big old crush/infatuation with one of the roommates, Sam, a hobbit-sized RM from Washington State. We made homemade nachos for their apartment during the Superbowl to impress them with our amazing “domesticated cooking skills” which would prove our “marriage eligibility.” Since Sam was totally absorbed in the game and unavailable for flirting, I introduced myself to his friend I’d never met, Tim Powell. He wasn’t all that interesting, he just made me laugh when he commented on a commercial with “That was cute.” I’ve NEVER heard a guy say something like that about a superbowl commercial…..and I couldn’t resist teasing him for it. He claims I outright called him Gay but I’m pretty sure I only implied it.

Not sure how long, maybe a few weeks, later…………I was spending my Saturday night alone, daydreaming about my hobbit (sorry Tim) and realized I had missed a call, had a message on Facebook, and had a text message---All from Tim Powell asking me to go on a double date with him and Sam. I was happy as a clam to have been actually asked on a date!!!!!! it made my night!!! The only problem was wasn’t Sam’s date. So I carefully researched (facebook-stalked) Tim and concluded that he wasn’t very interesting; I think I even called him a goober….definately not my type. However, I devised a magnificent, sly plan to win Sam over. I would go on this date with his best friend, Tim, and make him so jealous he would realize how much he liked me……(again sorry Timmy). Tim picked me up at my apartment that night and Sam was already in the car…which made me a happy camper…and they still hadn’t picked up Sam’s date. When we picked her up…..i recognized the gorgeous chick from my dance class who had long blonde hair and intimidated me like none other. I was sooo not happy. We went to an action film and Tim was actually rather enjoyable to be around, even though I spent most of the time keeping my eye on this girl and Sam. Tim must have enjoyed the date because when he dropped me off, he awkwardly and shyly hugged me and suggested we do something again during the week! (wasn’t he cute?).

I think it was the Wednesday following that date when I invited him to come eat dinner with me because I made too much stir fry. I don’t think he liked it very much, but he put on his brave “missionary” face and ate every last scrap, practically licked the plate clean, I was so impressed. Then he showed me Facebook pictures of before his mission and I got to know him a little more. First he showed me all his mission pictures that he was so proud of and told me plenty of his stories from Uruguay. I was impressed that he spoke Spanish, I had studied Spanish for 5 years but I absolutely stunk at it. But I was really fascinated with Spanish-speaking RM’s. I even noticed he had a cute accent and forgot how to say things in English. He shocked me when he showed me pictures from before his mission, he was quite the cute chubalub in his youth. Seeing this huge change in him since he had left for Uruguay made him more attractive to me. He had grown into a man, physically and mentally, that was really cool, and he took his mission very seriously and obviously missed it. He had mentioned that he couldn’t stay long when he first arrived at my dorm for dinner……but the evening must have been successful in his opinion because he ended up asking me if I wanted to go bowling with him and Sam after dinner! ….what a surprise! I hurried to brush my teeth and grab shoes and we went on our second date. That dang Blonde chick was with Sam again, much to my irritation and jealousy, but I decided to just enjoy myself and have fun. We won a free game of GLOW-IN-THE-DARK- Mini Golf just by “liking” FatCat’s on facebook. THAT WAS SO MUCH FUN I finally laughed and had fun on a date! And Tim was just as terrible as me at minigolf...that made me feel so much better.. We even had a moment where our team won a hole or whatever u call it (gosh im pathetic) and we went to high-five each other, and WE BOTH MISSED! We went bowling afterwards and I had such a good time with Tim and the group. …. HOLY POOPSTAIN THIS STORY IS LONG! What the heck?! Sorry everybody, I’ll try to speed it up

I invited him to my little cousin’s 2nd birthday party in Rigby, and we went and played with my little cousins. My 4 year old cousin asked as we were playing, “are you two gonna marry each other?” We both awkwardly looked at each other …it made us think a little bit haha. Thank goodness for cute cousins. A few weeks later, he invited me to go to dinner with him and his family (they were stopping in Rexburg to see him). I got so nervous I almost called and told him I was sick and couldn’t make it. We weren’t even dating yet, so it scared me. But I had an amazing time and I felt very comfortable with his family! It even made me homesick for my own family! I loved the way he interacted with his family and I could see they obviously loved each other and enjoyed having him around. I had a couple really quick thoughts about what it would be like to marry him, but I ignored them. Tim and I spent the rest of the evening playing mini-golf again and getting to know each other.

Ok so, over the next few weeks, Tim and I spent plenty of time together just because we had nobody else to do things with. When I realized Tim and I were with each other every single day, it started worrying me and I decided to make myself “less available” the next week. But by Monday I couldn’t stop myself from inviting him over AGAIN! He slowly grew on me, and as we spent time together he became more and more attractive to me. I really admired his positive attitude and goofiness and his Washington slang hahaha, just the way he talked made me laugh. And I loved hearing about his mission and how it affected him. There was a weekend when he went home to Washington……and I realized I couldn’t stand being without him for more than a day!

One afternoon, he texted me and asked if I would meet him near the Smith building on my way to class because he wanted to talk to me. I was afraid he would give me the “I’m not interested in you, please back off, you’re starting to creep me out” speech. So I met him there with nervous butterflies and prepared myself to fight back tears. He walked me to my class and asked me if I wanted to make it “official” and date him since we already spent all our time together and all our friends knew we were always sort of a package deal, connected at the hip practically. I told him I would think about it. After hearing that some girl cut his hair and gave him an amazing shoulder and head massage, and even gave him her number……..that made me a smidge jealous and I immediately informed Tim that YES I wanted to date him. [major detail--I was Tim’s FIRST girlfriend!!!!!!!]



MY FAVORITE DATES WITH TIM AS A COUPLE:

• LITTLE KID ADVENTURE NIGHT: we built a fort in my livingroom and ordered pizza and watched my favorite tv show in the fort!

• PLAYING HOUSE: We cooked together and ate dinner together almost every night! We went grocery shopping together once and planned a meal….we brought our bags home (to my apartment) and cooked together. We made French Dip Sandwiches that we dipped in Au Jus sauce!!! (tim was a goofball and called it Jew Sauce). Tim mixed the condiments (we call them CONDOMents) to make homemade FRY SAUCE (ketchup and mayo) for our tater tots….but the only tatertots we could find at the local grocery store made us laugh so much! The bag called them “tater puffs”! we were SOOOOOO in Idaho! Hahaha We had a blast that night and we had a preview of what it might be like to be married and make dinner together…….according to me, he definitely passed the test!

• “SPOONING IN THE PARK AT SUNSET” Sounds questionable, I know! We bought a tub of Orange Sherbet Icecream to share and I only had one clean spoon available in my kitchen, so we shared it and called it “spooning” when we scooped up some icecream with it. Tim drove me to PORTER PARK (smooth move huh?). we planned to sit under a big tree and eat our sherbet together and talk……or I’d teach him how to climb a tree and we’d eat it in the tree…. BUT the park was absolutely CROWDED…everybody and their DOG and their MOTHER and their ROOMATE’S MOTHER’S DOG were there!!!!!!! If we sat under a tree to eat our sherbet we probably would have been smacked in the face by a soccerball, then a tennisball, then a Frisbee, then a baby stroller, followed by a herd of wild kids playing football or tag. We refused to risk the safety of our precious sherbet…so we stayed in the car and ate it. Tim parked the car facing all of the parkdwellers……and put on his favorite song “People Watching” by Jack Johnson…..we Watched all the people and ate our sherbet and talked about all the people we saw because they COULDN’T HEAR US while we were in the car! BEST DATE OF MY LIFE! I laughed so much and Tim definitely won points for that in my book

• Tim’s first time going PARKING: to be discussed in 2 paragraphs from this point 

Heres the part of the story EVERYONE ….usually wants to know-OUR FIRST KISS!! [Another fact for the day……Tim was still a member of the Virgin-Lips club…he had NEVER BEEN KISSED! He saved his kisses for his future wife…how CUTE!] One night, we were sitting on the couch together watching another movie……and afterwards I wrapped my arms around his neck and gave him a nice little hug  he turned his head and gave me a kiss on the cheek, and I decided to be funny and tease him “YOU MISSED!” hoping he would actually kiss me………but what I didn’t realize was that he was actually trying to kiss me and had really missed!!!!!! He tried to test the waters by asking “Oh did you not want me to miss?” …..and I totally blew it by not knowing what to say to that and going silent…….and he was SOOO embarrassed……..we had an awkard silence….then Tim said…”TOMORROW, I’ll see you tomorrow” and left as quick as he could. For the next entire week I was so disappointed every time he left and hadn’t tried to kiss me. Poor guy was just scared, he didn’t know how! So finally I sent a text that made it obvious I wanted him to kiss me…I think I tried to come across as subtle but it probably came out loud and clear. Then finally, it happened about a week later……we were sitting on the couch pretty far from each other after a night of homework and movies. I don’t remember what was said but I remember it was DANG AWKWARD! It was very sweet but stinkin’ awkward. It was just a quick peck but he was absolutely glowing and blushing and smiling like a total goober, it was adorable. From then on, every time I would give him a cute little peck on the lips before he left for class or left for the night, he would do his little “toe touch” move before walking away hahaha he was so cute! And he wasn’t afraid to give me a quick little smooch when he dropped me off at my classes either, I LOVED it! And that’s ALL you need to know about that ; )

Here’s a post I made March 27th about one of our dates:

FUNNY STORY FOR EVERYBODY!!!! :) last night Tim came over and we went out for pizza and got a movie, but as soon as our movie ended my roommates and all their wild friends took over the apartment and non-verbally kicked us out for the night....and the residence hall lounge was taken too....so we had nowhere to go and we still had an hour ‘til curfew. Well, we OBVIOUSLY couldn’t go to the Gardens or go park the car anywhere or we'd be tempted to be immature and just suck each others faces.....so we decided to go up by the temple, it’s the only "safe" place we can go.....seriously...how can you go parking and make out when Angel Moroni is givin u stern looks?!! hahaha i guess people do it though.


(K, this detail is important: I DID NOT kiss him the entire time we were in the car, i kissed him when he opened my door for me when we first got in, and i kissed him goodnight afterwards when he walked me to my apartment)


so we parked the car in the parking lot of the Rexburg Temple and held hands and had a lovely little chat and told each other stories about when we were kids. We were in the middle of discussing the possibility of us getting married and such (It had slipped out of my mouth: “sometimes I wonder if I’m going to marry you”….he’s told me recently that I had scared him when I told him) ...when we noticed another car in the parking lot was shining its headlights right into our windows. So that was a smidge funny and we joked about how they probably thought we were making out. we ignored them and kept talking, and before we knew it the car had driven right up next to us with its brights on. Now we knew they seriously thought we were up to something.....and to make matters worse it was snowing so the windows were a little foggy hahahahahahaha!!!!


The driver brought his car even closer and rolled down his window, so we figured the guy wanted to join our discussion hahahaha. we tried not to laugh when we rolled down our window and saw the 2 students, (Return missionaries-both male haha). apparently they deemed themselves the "makeout police" and interrogated us and worked to get us to admit to making out. i'm pretty sure they didnt believe us when we told them what we had actually been doing, and they kept chatting with us to use up time so we would spend more time talking to them than making out of course. it was quite delightsome....Tim and i laughed til we almost pee'd our pants afterwards. these guys asked where we were from and how we met and what we are studying and if we think we are gonna get married and if we love each other and even asked both of us if the other is a good kisser. we had the most awkward conversation with these strangers and i was shocked they didnt even crack a smile, i was trying not to laugh myself. finally, they finished with us and drove away.....and Tim and i could not stop laughing!!! So THAT'S what poor RM'S in denial of being single do with their saturday nights!!!!!!!! Tim was so irritated.....he really wants to take a car full of guyfriends there next time and shock the "makeout police"! hahaha we kept thinking of all these ridiculous things we should have said to them like, "no we cant make out in here, its a honda theres no room for that.....can we borrow your backseat?" ....or we shouldve embarassed them and told them we were married or just cousins hahahahahaha..............we even joked that it might be a fun date idea next time to go be "makeout police" for a night hahahahaha


anyway, so that was Tim's first time going "parking!" hahahaha! we were both like, wow that was a blast, im SOOO calling my momma tomorrow to tell her all about it!

We started making plans JUST IN CASE we got engaged….so we “hypothetically” chose different possible wedding dates and times we could visit each other and what we would do about school IF we got married. I remember it scaring me and I told tim I wanted to just go run into my room, lock the door and hide in there and never get married hahaha…….making the plans was my first “reality check” about marriage….it wasn’t something in the far future that was just a fairytale….it was a POSSIBILITY for me and tim and it freaked me out! Haha We were both pretty sure that our time apart after the semester would separate us and this whole marriage thing would disappear and there was nothing to worry about. We even told each other we could still go on dates with other people while we were apart the next semester……..that plan didn’t last long….dun dun dun!!!!!!!!!!!

We watched General Conference together at Tim’s apartment with his roommates in April. I spent almost the entire day at his apartment during the Saturday session……then Tim dropped me off at home before joining his brother and roommates for Priesthood session. Tim told me later that it was during that session when he realized he wanted to ask me to marry him. For the Sunday session, we joined my Aunt and Uncle and their family in Rigby……and kept blushing as the same theme seemed to be repeating throughout the talks….Marriage. Each time we would hear another comment that struck us both….we would look at each other and each thought to ourselves, “oh crap they are talking to us.” The way he looked at me that day…..wowie!!!!!!!! <3 ill definitely take some of that for eternity, please and thankyou……

My parents came to pick me up from college and we drove Tim home to where his family had recently moved to (Utah) on the way home. What a tough cookie, my parents interrogated him the ENTIRE drive  it didn’t scare him away! He was happy to answer their questions and let them get to know him and prove himself worthy of MEEEE  I was so impressed. After the 2-3 week break, Timmy went back to Rexburg for Spring Semester. He flew to Colorado over Memorial Day Weekend and spent time with my family. It was THIS trip that he proposed to me!!!! <3 and we also did our engagement photos during Memorial Day weekend!!!

THE PROPOSAL:

I eavesdropped on my mom and Tim's mom when they discussed how Tim wanted to propose. He wanted to have an "interview" with my daddy first, then take me on a long romantic walk either at sunrise or sunset to a place along the trail that my dad found once with my mother...apparently you can see the entire city and have the perfect view of the mountains at sunrise/sunset.... Tim had to adjust his plan due to complications in our schedules and decided to produce a ring the first night he arrived. He flew into Colorado on a Friday night, and he decided he'd take me on a date that night, and propose then. but of course, his plane was delayed and the airline wouldnt allow him to finish the trip to Colorado Springs, so we had to drive an hour away from home to pick him up...and as it got later, i was devastated that the chance of going on a date was getting smaller and smaller. i met him in the Baggage Claim of the Denver Airport.......and gave him a big bear hug, and he was holding a BIG white box of gourmet cupcakes from my favorite Rexburg cupcake shoppe. he had eaten one of them and replaced it with a small white box with a ring in it....he was shaking so much it was adorable....and awkwardly got on his knee and proposed with the cupcakes. i forgot my part i was so excited and just stood there like a bafoon/doofus/freakshow....i Froze and wondered: wow what do i do now! Fortunately, I snapped back to reality and gave an excited YES and kissed him. he took out the ring from its box and tried to put it on my finger but was shaking so bad he almost couldnt get it on, it was sooo cute! and an old lady stopped us and took a picture with her cellphone for us....then on our way out a man stopped us and told us we were AWESOME and that he had just been on the phone with his wife and saw the whole thing and gave her a play by play of the proposal! haha cute! it was perfect! tim was embarassed that he had to propose in an airport but i loved it! love that boy!

With planning for this wedding…..Tim and I have had our ups and downs and I’ve had my doubts and fears………and it has been quite difficult and a little frustrating im sure for Tim as ive struggled with my fears. After many personal prayers and priesthood blessings and temple trips and visits with my bishop and lots of soul-searching………..i am finally SURE!!!! and THIS is my final answer: I want to marry Tim Powell on August 12, 2011 and not even the Father of Lies, Doubts, and Fears can stop me from going to the temple to be sealed for time and all eternity to this (handsome) righteous, worthy man <3.