I'm IT!

I've been tagged....by Audrey...happy reading!

1. Where did you meet your husband?
(this is not a picture of the incident described below...it's just an "Early" Kendall and Jen pic)
August 9, 1997, at a Stake Dance in Lakewood, WA when I was 15 years old and he was 16. He had just returned from being at EFY with all my friends (I did not go that year), and as all my friends were girls he was one of the only guys with our group that night. They introduced him to me, and we danced a couple of times. We had a very funny conversation, which is one of the first things I think of when I remember that night. I thought of him afterwards as that really funny guy who danced with me more than once (because that was a rarity). That night, incidentally, I also met his sister, Katie, who now lives in AZ and is, of course, one of my great friends. As another side note: Kendall had his eye on another of the girls in our circle of friends at that time, and they went out for a little while.

2. What was the first thing you said to your husband?

It was probably something like, “Hi, Kendall, my name is Jen.” And that was the beginning of a beautiful thing.

3. Where was your first date?
(this is the actual Applebee's in Puyallup)
Our first date was December 27, 1998; we went to Applebee’s in our hometown of Puyallup, WA. There he asked me to go to the Jr. Prom. Which took me a minute to process because we were class officers (Kendall: president, Jen: secretary) and we had been planning the prom ad nauseam by that time and I hadn’t even thought of actually going to it. So he said, “What are you doing on January 14th?” or whatever day the prom was and I said, “Nothing, (small chuckle) I don’t usually plan my time that far in advance” and then he looked at me a little sideways and said something to the effect that that was when junior prom was, didn’t I remember that? And I felt very sheepish and said I wasn’t doing anything special and he asked if I’d like to go with himJ so that was our first date at Applebee’s.

4. Where was your first kiss?

After the above stated Jr. Prom, on the doorstep of my parent’s house.

5. Did you have a short or long engagement?

By whose standards is what we have to ask ourselves here? By those people who wait a year or two to get married, then it was short. By those people who meet each other and then two weeks later are married, it was quite longJ we got engaged 11 days after Kendall got home from his mission (that was in September) and we got married on December 27, 2002.

6. Where did you get engaged?

(Engagement Pic)

We got engaged on the grassy lawn across from the Provo, Utah Temple. Down on one knee, the whole sha-bang. It was very romantic and sweet. We’d taken a walk to get there because we lived very close, and it was nice weather outside.

7. Where were you married?

We got married in the Seattle Washington Temple, on December 27, 2002, during a wind storm. The light flickered while we were in the Temple…a sign? Only the good kindJ

8. How did the reception go?

Beautifully, my parents and Kendall’s family and all the people who helped with it should get a medal. It was not an easy thing, my dad did a faux ceiling in the gym, the decorations were beautiful, the food was awesome and I selected all the music, so that was quite good as well. We had a line for a little while at the beginning and then we dispersed and greeted guests as we walked around. While we were in high school, Kendall had made me a story of how we met etc. with pictures and for our wedding we had a slide show of pictures and then Kendall read the story he’d written for me, on the slide show while funny pictures of us passed by. It was very sweet, I cried…for heaven’s sakes!

9. How was the honeymoon?

Quite an impertinent question, but it was lovely. We stayed in a very nice hotel the first night and then went to a cabin that Kendall’s grandparents owned at the time, which was located on Harstene Island, a couple of hours away from our families.