This year.

"I think it's realistic to think it could be this year, don't you?" "Yeah, oh!" As the feelings of excitement and anxiety went coursing through me I felt my mind reeling with the anticipation of a wedding and a marriage and an eternity. Also of the wedding dress I had received in the mail earlier that day. This is real. He is my future. All the things in the world I want to share with Connor. I love his friends. I love his quirks. I love his grin. I love our life together. I love to hug him. I love that when he catches my eye and I walk over and tell him I just want to hug him all the time! That he smiles, hugs me back, kisses my cheek and says "me too" 

I love that he shoveled my driveway on Monday. I love that he left love notes in the snow. I love that he has to lean down to kiss me. I love saying good morning to him because it means we have all day to be together. I hate sleeping because that's time apart. 

boy kisses

"Sometimes when that boy kisses me I feel it in my toes!" were words that were said in enthusiasm after saying goodnight to my sweetheart last night. Thank goodness I have a roommate who is in love and stuff too so she doesn't get sickened by our love stuff. He talks me through everything so we try to be on the same page and he knows what I'm going through and I know what battles he's fighting. The more we talk the more I feel connected to him, the more the marriage words creep into our conversations. Together Forever is a beautiful and terrifying idea. He is everything that I need and even more what I want and it's so comforting to know that. Who knew I would be here? Who knew this would be my life? Who knew I would be this blessed? There will be hard days, and hard things, and unfortunate circumstance and miscommunication and hurt feelings, but we'll be there together and for each other. I need him, and I don't need anybody.

This is what dreams are made of

Who started singing songs from the Lizzie Mcquire movie? Don't deny it. Last night was a very grand night in my life. I did all my laundry and hugged my boyfriend a lot and we had a lengthy discussion about something that was bothering me about our ward and while he was saying something I pictured our life together and how we'll have millions of conversations just like that one and how he'll always be level headed and trying to make things better and run more smoothly. We were laying on the love sack and it just made me think of pillow talk and I started grinning imagining all the wonderful things this life has in store for us together and he saw me smiling and said something along the lines of "you think what I just said is attractive" honestly, I have no idea what he said in that particular moment, but I wasn't sure how to tell him "well I've just imagined our whole life" so I just smiled some more and hugged him. I was talking with Ari about weddings and stuff and Connor went on a rant about how dresses cost WAY too much money and I chimed in with, "I don't want a big diamond, I don't want a giant fancy wedding" and he said "Noted. I love you" haha I'm just so stinking happy and don't want to forget any of this! I'm so grateful this is my life.

Apparently

True loves means when your girlfriend tells you she can't stand zombies at all, explaining to her in great detail exactly how it's not something she ever needs to be worried about because long story short, zombies are slow and people are smart, but that will never happen because we live in the real world. Now that I'm no longer worried about a zombie apocalypse I feel a lot better about life in general and now there is more room in my thoughts for other things. Just kidding, I wasn't that worried about it, but every time I thought about zombies I would shudder, those days are gone. "Unless you can be weird with them, it's not worth it" words of wisdom from my man. We're quickly becoming weirder by the minute :)

Is your head always that heavy?

It's funny how migraines mess with everything in your body, I have never been concerned about how much Connors head weighed until he was snuggling with me and I had to turn away because of the pressure it was putting on my head. Weird. Anyway! Yesterday around 3 in the afternoon the vision in my left eye went away. It was just fuzzy and weird and I knew it was a precursor to a migraine so I came home and Connor came over to take care of me. He held me for awhile then got up after I fell asleep and did work while I slept it off. Thankfully he stayed and told my roommates as they came home what the situation was and everybody let me sleep! For about three hours! Oh it was marvelous! I woke up feeling better and I could see! But holy cow my energy was gone! So I ate a little something then we went over to tommys and talked with them for awhile before going back to my house and watching a movie. Holy cow I really dislike having roommates sometimes. Well that's not true, I love my roommates, but all the extra people that go along with them are exhausting and hard to deal with. I miss the days when we weren't the party house. I loved the quiet that I knew was waiting for me when I came home. Someday I will live in a tiny little apartment with Connor and we will live quiet and fun lives. It's going to be grand! 

Do you know how much I love you?

"Do you know how much I love you?" "How much" "I don't know, I can't count that high, wow that was a cheesy line" 

Hey, at least we recognize the cheesy. Yesterday we were at a game night and he came up behind me and started rubbing my shoulders because he's the absolute most amazing man on the planet and leaned over and whispered in my ear "you're beautiful" at a moment where I was feeling quite decidedly not beautiful. This morning we were talking about how my roommate broke up with her boyfriend and he said "it's a very realistic possibility that I'll never have to do that" welp, I'm feeling pretty marvelous about that. We did this thing tonight where we pulled up google maps and he was showing me areas in his mission then he pulled up Wasilla and I showed him my home and Casey's cross and my voice caught and the emotions took me by surprise and he grabbed my hand and I held on for dear life and he let me have my moment or 5 and held me while I sorted it out then we moved on together. I won't forget the look in his eyes when the emotions caught me by surprise. I don't write these here so others can know how amazing my life is, I write them here so one day when I can't remember how to tie my shoelaces I can remember how things began with the love of my life and all the things that make my heart pitter patter. I am amazed by his strength and his resolution to overcome obstacles. I am amazed at how highly he speaks of others and the temper that he keeps in check. I am amazed at his resolve to keep promises and figure out how to make things work. I love every bit of him and I want to hold onto him forever. 

My favorite part about making plans

I think my favorite part about making plans for our life together means that we're going to have a life together. A rough estimate of this conversation took place today. "That means we'll need to go on a big expensive trip huh?" *starts talking about airfare to Italy* "that's okay, we can go when we're old and have lots of money" "yeah, right before our mission" "yeah, right now we should be taking car trips while we're young and can sit in cars easily" 

Discussing my grand plans for travel and desire to see the world. I love this man because he just slipped in the mission thing and it made me SO happy because I have always wanted that! My grandparents were such an amazing example to me because they went on three missions as a couple. That's the goal, I always knew there was a reason I didn't go as a young adult and I think it's because I want to go as an old adult :) I think that should be a thing. 

The future looks bright, my friends.