Bandwagons. Also, the Ellises' little love story.

As I've spent 3 years in college as a single gal, it seemed that I watched every female member (some males, too) of my high school graduating class grow up, get married, and, for a few, have a baby. Without fail, those wonderful ladies started a blog about their married lives. They blogged about creative things they were doing with their majors or awesome crafts they did - I was a little left out. My life didn't seem all that interesting... after all, I was spending most of my time writing lesson plans and essays and filling out practice IEP forms. The time I had left was spent sorting out roommate conflicts and convincing freshmen to come to programs my wonderful staff of fellow RAs had planned. The only people that would "get" me would probably be either fellow SPED majors or fellow university housing employees - both categories that lacked close friends that would actually want to read my blog. Blogging, it seemed, was a bandwagon that I didn't really have the chance to jump on. Then something awesome happened. Last October, I met my best friend. His name is Taylor Ellis. As of two weeks ago, he's my husband, too! So here's our story. (warning: long post.)

Freshman year, I was roommates with a crazy but amazing girl named Chelsey Ellis (now the happily married Chelsey Smith (: ). She and I became best buds, and she convinced me to write her missionary brother, currently serving in Charlotte, North Carolina. "You'll love him," she said. "Okay," I said. At this point, I had already met most of the rest of her family, and I did like all of them a lot. So I wrote him a letter, and challenged him to a game of Super Smash Bros. once he got home from the mish. He wrote me back, and that one simple challenge carried over the next 18 months and a few more letters until he returned with honor. Taylor sent me a friend request on Facebook, and as missionary-letter etiquette would dictate, I accepted. We traded phone numbers, had a conversation here and there as busy people do, and kept hinting at that video game challenge from "so long ago." ;) Then, in early October my family took our annual summer vacation in the fall to Disneyland. I finally had a chance to breathe, and as luck would have it, Taylor chose the first day we were in California to strike up another conversation with me and ask me on a date. We were to enjoy dinner somewhere, then finally see who was the true Super Smash master (it's him, by the way...). 

This date invitation turned into a week's worth of more in-depth conversations, which turned into flirting, which turned into a lucky first face-to-face meeting before our date, which turned into phone calls, which turned into more dates, which turned into a first kiss, which was a sure sign of true love. There were many almost-cheesy exchanges of songs to express feelings, many slightly awkward Skype calls as we got to know each other better, many shared laughs at our shared goofiness, many prayers to make sure we were doing the right thing with our lives, and many sweet reassurances that it was okay to fall in love with this other person. It was crazy for me to think that I was actually thinking about marriage. After all, I was "that girl" in high school that talked about starting a Mormon convent. I didn't date much, I didn't really have much of a social life, and here I was, barely 20 years old, head over heels for this amazing, sweet, creative boy who brought me more happiness than I could have imagined. Taylor helped me through a lot of tough stuff in my life brought on by my parents' divorce that summer. He helped me have a lot more faith in relationships. 

We survived our first holiday season together (Thanksgiving and Christmas can be rough), we survived only getting to see each other on weekends for 3 months, and we survived it all with the strength and support that we could only get by relying on the Lord and on each other. Once he proposed (on the 6th floor of Valley View Tower, after surprising me with a dozen roses in each elevator), we decided on the Draper Temple to be sealed for time and all eternity. I would say I was the happiest girl alive when he finally got an apartment in Logan, but I've been the happiest girl alive for the past six months to be honest with you. Planning a wedding brought us closer together, but the thing that brought us the closest was planning our marriage. 

It's funny how you sometimes feel your heart can't get any bigger, then the next day you fall even more in love with your special someone. I've been blessed enough to have that happen every day since we said "I love you" to each other for the first time. I am looking forward to an eternity of that happening. So, with this post I'm taking a big leap onto the blogging bandwagon to share with our friends and loved ones the Ellises' happily ever after. :)