6 years

The day after Kendree's birthday, Ronnie and I celebrated our sixth wedding anniversary.  I'm always amazed at how time seems to fly by, but at the same time I can barely remember what it was like to not be married to Ronnie.

Because Grandma and Grandpa Cali had come into town for the birthday celebrations, we were able to go out on an actual anniversary date. 

Wanna know what we did?

Shopped for a new fridge for our new house and then had dinner at Olive Garden.  We are insane party animals.  As you can imagine, our social calendar is completely empty totally full, so you better contact me as soon as you can to get in on the party action. 

We may or may not take you to Home Depot, Lowe's, Sears and other appliance stores all over the city.

Get excited.

And, I thought it would be fun for me to record the short-ish kinda long version of how Ronnie and I met, etc. (you know, for posterity).

Ronnie was just home from his mission in the fall of 2002 and moved into The Riviera (affectionally referred to as "The Riv" by those who know it well).  I was beginning my second year at BYU and was also living at The Riv.  We happened to be in the same ward.  I remember meeting Ronnie fairly quickly after the semester started.  He and his roommate Clay went around to visit every apartment of girls in the ward, and ours was just another stop on their "tour."  Since they had both only been off of their missions for about 6 weeks (or less), most of our conversation was church related.  I remember temples as a main topic.

Fast forward a few weeks and I was dating his roommate.  It lasted just a week or two and then we both moved on.  I remember gossiping chatting with Ronnie about how it all went down afterward.  That was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

That year we both had lots of fun in groups and with each other, but we never dated.  The summer of 2003, Ronnie returned to Califonia to work and be with his family and I stayed in the Provo area while I worked for BYU Broadcasting part-time, took a few online classes and traveled back to Wyoming for several weeks to be a nanny/housemaid.  We continued to stay in touch and even saw each other once or twice when I went down to California or he came up to Provo.  During that summer, I realized that I liked him, but knew that he was a little weirded out with the whole "date someone your roommate dated" thing.  I guess I was a lot braver then than I am now, because during one phone coversation I just asked him, "Do you think we could ever date?"  I don't remember his exact answer, but I do remember that essentially his answer was no. Surprisingly, our friendship survived such a phone call. 

The next fall, I was living in The Riv once again, but Ronnie had decided to move to another complex.  We still saw a lot of each other and this was the year that we became "go to" dates for one another.  Need a date to participate on a group date? Call Ronnie/KaLee.  This is when Ronnie says that he started thinking maybe he could be more than friends. I on the other hand, had moved on to new crushes.  I still considered him one of my closest friends, but had stopped thinking of him as anything more.

The summer of 2004 found us both staying in Provo for work.  We continued to hang out and he even traveled to Laramie with me when I went home for my youngest brother's baptism, so he got to meet the fam.  On that road trip was when I realized that he was acting differently and began to pick up that he might be thinking that we could try that dating thing.  I was very unsure about how I felt about this...after all, I had laid my heart out on the line the summer before and gotten shot down.  According to Ronnie, the result of all of my swirling feelings was that I treated him like dirt for a few weeks (sorry, hon!).

Early in the fall of 2004, Ronnie decided he had to act.  Most don't know that he is very thoughtful and sentimental, but that side of him led him to write me a poem about how his feelings had changed and he wanted to start dating.  He planned to ask me to hang out (something that wouldn't seem weird to me based on our friendship).  We would go out for ice cream and then go for a walk, then he would pull out the poem and wait for my reaction. This was all supposed to be a surprise to me.

Unfortunately for Ronnie, he told the plan to my former roommate and close friend, Carissa, who felt that I REALLY needed to know what was going to hit me and proceeded to tell me.  (I don't know if Ronnie will ever completely forgive Carissa for that one. :)  )  So, I had about a day to process this all in my head and decide what I wanted to do.  I remember praying for guidance all day.  I knew Ronnie so well, that I knew deciding to date him was essentially deciding to marry him.  We had 2+ years of close friendship and there weren't many things I didn't know about him.

I remember my mind racing that evening as I tried to act like I had no idea what was going on.  I pre-thought every facial expression and comment to make sure it sounded "natural." We went out for ice cream (Cold Stone, delicious) and as we were getting in the car, Ronnie asked if I wanted to go on a walk.  I responded with, "Walk? We don't walk!"  I can't remember Ronnie's excuse to actually get me to walk at this point, but before I knew it we were in Rock Park, walking.  We came to a bench, Ronnie pulled out the poem and I proceeded with my practiced "surprised" facial expressions and responses. 

Thus began the dating of KaLee and Ronnie.

A month later we were talking about marriage and picking out rings.  We got engaged December 1, 2004 and were married February 18, 2005. (BYU doesn't have a spring break, but they do have a long President's Day weekend).

And here we are, 6 years, 6 (almost 7) houses, 7 jobs, 4 cars, 3 degrees, and 2 kids later, absolutely loving life!

And now a few pictures from our college years for your enjoyment (if you made it through that novel up above).

At the alpine slides

 Hanging out at KaLee's apartment

 Dinner at Red Robin

More hanging out pictures (I have a feeling there will be ramifications for this one).

 On my 21st birthday after I had to crawl through the "butt-slap" tunnel.  He's not even helping me up!

The night we got engaged

 Our wedding day