beginnings and endings

Hey everyone, long time no blogging.

So big events have been happening in my life, one of which was getting engaged. I know girls like looking at engagement pictures, and I think mostly girls read this blog, so...

After all the pictures I'll write some more...



Our photographer brought the craziest balloon I ever did see.

right after I told Becky a racist joke

This one and the next one are goofy ones you'll probably never see otherwise



This one reminds me of that picture of the farmer with a pitchfork standing next to his wife





This is the one I wanted on the announcement but Becky wouldn't let me. Still can't figure out why.

So for Halloween we threw together costumes - I was a rapper and Becky was my groupie. Note the junk in her trunk. Also had a rolled pant leg, bottle of Martinellis, and some sweet sunglasses to go with this.

So the engagement story - I tried to wake up early one Saturday to sneak down to Vegas and back without Becky knowing, but I woke up 3 hours late. There was a diamond guy in my mission who could get me a better deal than any place was offering in Provo, by a long shot, so I met in the shadowy hallway of Marriot's Palms resort and casino with a shady-looking foreign man in a business suit, who whipped out a briefcase full of diamonds and continually casted paranoid glances around for the entire 3 hours of our discussion. That, the language barrier, and the frequent trips outside to the sunlight to look at the diamond took a long time.

So on my way back to Provo I called Becky and told her that we should go rock-climbing. She was a little frustrated at my lack of visibility and our rapidly-approaching window during which to get married, and was a little bummed when I came to pick her up. We get to the place, belay for each other, and on my first trip up I put the box with her ring right behind the pulley at the top of the 3-story rock wall. So she went up after me, I told her to look around when she got to the top, and she found the box. So because the place was busier than normal, we went outside and I proposed to her, and she said yes. We then went up to the Cheesecake Factory in Salt Lake for dinner and spent most of the rest of the night on the phone with family. She told me later that because she thought rock climbing meant she wasn't getting proposed to that night, that she had planned to tell me we should push the wedding back til summer to give us enough planning time. Close one huh?

On a more somber note, earlier this week Becky's dad called my cell while I was on the way to class, and he told me to go meet Becky at her house. I knew something was wrong, so I prepared for the worst. Sure enough, we got there and Spencer gave us the news that her 18-year-old brother McKay had passed away unexpectedly on his army base in Kentucky the night before. Two soldiers came to the Mortensen's doorstep to deliver the news the next morning, and so Becky's parents called us pretty soon afterwards.

Mac was the only member of Becky's immediate family I had never met in person, and I don't pretend to be qualified to say much about him, as I didn't know him like his family knew him. About 5 or 6 weeks before his passing, a few days after Becky and I got engaged, he called her during one of our nighttime study sessions, and I got the chance to talk with him for about 20 minutes, so here is what I do know:

For those of you who have met Becky, you know that she is the sweetest girl and has a heart of gold. Mac had the same disposition: loving, compassionate, and concerned for everyone around him. That characteristic was so much a part of who he was (and still is) that it shone through just 5 minutes into our conversation. He asked me how big I was to make sure I could protect his sister. He asked me how good of a Mormon I was, then spent about ten minutes telling me that he had always wanted a brother, and that he used to pray that God would give him a brother. He cried a little bit, I think from a combination of happiness that we were going to be friends and uncertainty about giving away his sister. He told me over and over again to take care of her

Mac, I will take care of your sister. We are still brothers, our meeting will just be a little postponed. Take care til I can come meet you face to face.