The Brady Family - Kristen's Version

Well, I feel like I've told this story so much in the past six months or so, but I know it's important to get it on the site for posterity, so here you go:

Shawn and I met in the Mountain View 3rd Ward - a singles' ward. I was over visiting his brother, Bryan, and Shawn walked out of the house. My immediate thought? I wanted to spend the rest of the night with him instead. He convinced me to come to the Ward Sports' Night, with the promise that if I came he would walk with me (since I told him I didn't like to play volleyball or basketball competitively). I came almost to spite him and see if he'd actually follow through - he did! I came a few times, and I enjoyed walking with him and talking, but then it became too cold, so I stopped coming. We remained friends, but nothing really happened. In May 2005, we were both at a midnight movie showing (his brother Darin put the group together), and ended up talking and joking around. He was complaining about not dating, and I made some comment about never asking me out, and he said, "Fine, want to go out with me?" and I said, "Fine, I will.!" Turns out (this came out WAY later) we were both trying to trick the other person into going out with us. We went out later that week for ice cream cones at Artic Circle and to see The Pacifier at the Dollar Theater. It was really fun, and we were both interested in each other, but too afraid to do anything about it. Now we come to one year later... I was living with Tania Finn at the time. She was serving as the Relief Society President and felt like she should go to Sports' Night to support the ward, and, since summer was coming soon so I could stay up later, I decided to go with her. I was fully prepared to play basketball, volleyball, or just chit chat with whoever. However, when I walked in Shawn asked if I wanted to go walking. So, I'm no dummy - I said of course! My crush on him immediately came back, and it got stronger and stronger. We would walk every week (except when I was in Europe and when I was on the Church History trip) for about an hour. Sometimes others would join us, but most of the time it was just us. During all those hours we got to know each other very well, and became very close. Meanwhile Shawn was called to serve as my new Family Home Evening co-group leader. Near the end of September Shawn started emailing me for things other than FHE stuff, and he then asked me out in October. Our second first date, as we like to call it, was like three dates rolled into one - we went to Panda Express for dinner, then went to Hollywood Connection to Mini-Golf and play games, and finally ended up at the Dollar Theater to see Step Up. We spent a couple weeks where we were just dating, but not seriously, when I (it's true, it was me) asked Shawn what we were doing here, and was he interested in me. He thought he'd been obvious (I see now that for him - he was!), but I was so confused. We decided that we were both only interested in dating each other, and thus began our almost six month courtship. We're both very busy people, but we made time to be together whenever possible. We started discussing marriage in February, and I felt good about it, and Shawn felt we should wait. Then in March he felt good about it, and I felt we should wait, finally, in April, we both felt that we were ready. We became engaged at the end of April. Shawn took me to the Veteran's Memorial Park in West Jordan. This is a park that has a lot of meaning for us because we'd spent many special times there. He took me walking around, and, although I was pretty positive he was goig to propose to me, he got me scared there when he started talking because he started saying things like how freaked out our relationship made him, and how he'd done a lot of thinking. I was almost surprised and very grateful when he finally said that after much thinking he'd realized that nothing would honor him more than to have me as his wife. He then got down on one knee and officially proposed. (Funny story though - around this time a cop car pulled up in a nearby parking lot and just sat there with his lights on; we didn't know if we were being watched or what, but decided to leave just in case!). Shawn and I were married in the Jordan River Temple on Saturday, July 28, 2007. Every day I'm more grateful for him, and I feel so lucky that I was able to marry my best friend. I love you Shawn!