The Story of Us - Part 17
In the middle of June, Josh and I went on what is still one of my favorite dates we've done so far. We decided it would be fun to go back to R Mountain and have a picnic, and so on a Saturday afternoon, we packed up some sandwiches in Josh's backpack and headed up the mountain. Once we worked our way over to the R, we set up our little dinner and kept talking. I commented on what a beautiful view of the valley it was, and I started taking some pictures of it on my phone. Josh pulled out his phone too, and said "This is the view I like the most" as he snapped this picture of us:
Dang, he was cute :)
After we were finished eating, we made our way about halfway back around the top of the mountain when it started to get dark. We found some rocks to sit under and we played with a laser pointer Josh had brought along, tracing the constellations and seeing how far out we could get the light to go. And we just talked for well over an hour before we made the much harder trek down the mountain in the dark.
We did a lot of talking while we were dating. I'll admit, I'm not the best communicator and I'm much more comfortable with silence than Josh, and so sometimes he would have to pry the conversation out of me, but I really did love talking with him! He was a very good listener and it was fun to get to know him better. At first we talked about the basic things: our favorite food, what we wanted to do after college, and childhood vacations, but soon we started diving into the deeper things: past regrets, how many children we wanted someday, how we dealt with anger or disappointments. It's always hard for me to open up myself to others, to make myself vulnerable, but it was comforting doing so because Josh was showing me all of his imperfections at the same time. And that made me like him even more.
On June 19th my brother Jackson returned from serving his mission in the Philippines! Josh and I were making dinner at my place that night when we got a surprise Skype call from him at home! One of my other brothers Justus, Josh, and I were headed to Billings that weekend, and I couldn't wait to see my brother! But I was also nervous because this would be the first time that Josh met my entire family.
Now there's a few things you should know. First, Josh was my very first boyfriend. Sure, I had liked a few guys and gone on some dates, but this was the first official relationship I had ever been in. None of my siblings in fact, had been in a serious relationship up to that point. Two, my family is a family of teasers. We love to tease and playfully mock each other. It's just what we do. Especially when it comes to someone having a crush. This being so, I had developed the tendency to avoid telling my family about dates I was going on, guys I liked - just guys in general. I had been teased mercilessly about a high school crush for years and I didn't want that repeated. And third, remember the whole mission papers thing? Well I had had several talks with my parents on the phone about it whenever I had my bouts of confusion about serving a mission, but due to reason #2, I had never really mentioned Josh. My mom knew that I had been upset about a boy around Easter, but to my knowledge, that was about as far as they knew about everything.
So the week of my bishop's interview/the week Josh and I became official, I had called my parents before devotional that week and talked to them separately about my most recent confusion of whether I should serve a mission or not. I told my mom "that there's this guy" but I wasn't sure. I didn't tell my dad about this (I figured my mom would tell him), though. So when a week later I post on Facebook that I was in a relationship with Josh Guin, my poor dad was quite broadsided. (I later found out from a brother that my dad's exact words were, "Who's this schmuck who's keeping my daughter from going on a mission?!") So not surprisingly, he called me a couple of days later, asking when he was going to meet "this guy". And so, not even a month into us dating, Josh was joining Justus and I as we headed up to Billings for the weekend. I was terrified!
I was so excited to see Jackson, that as soon as we parked in front of the house, I bolted out and sprinted up the stairs to the kitchen to give him a hug. And then I remembered that I had left my new boyfriend in the car. Oops! Luckily, he had followed Justus inside, and I was able to introduce him to everyone. Josh was easily 6 inches taller than anyone in my family, and so it took all of 30 seconds before my littlest three brothers were climbing all over him like a jungle gym. And they thought he was the coolest person ever (still do, in fact), and wanted to spend every minute with him. The next morning, for example, Josh got woken up by Jacoby poking him in the back, and when Josh turned around, Jacoby was right in his face, saying, "It's time to get up. It's morning!" Luckily Josh thought it was cute and was such a champ with the boys all weekend! They had him playing with them with their toys, jumping on the trampoline, and Jacoby and Jordan even wanted him to join us in the family pictures we had taken that weekend, haha!
And the rest of the family loved Josh too! Jackson told me months later that he knew we were going to get married as soon as he saw the two of us together that weekend. My mom told me that my dad and her hadn't seen any "red flags." I'll take it! I felt bad for unintentionally putting Josh in a bad spot with my parents before they had even met him, but he seemed to be winning them over, so I could breathe easier.
All in all, it was a wonderful weekend, and it was a relief that Josh hadn't gone running when he met all of the crazy Berg kids. Seeing the way Josh played with and was patient with my little brothers made me like him even more, and I couldn't wait to see where this thing we had going was going to take us :)
Dang, he was cute :)
After we were finished eating, we made our way about halfway back around the top of the mountain when it started to get dark. We found some rocks to sit under and we played with a laser pointer Josh had brought along, tracing the constellations and seeing how far out we could get the light to go. And we just talked for well over an hour before we made the much harder trek down the mountain in the dark.
We did a lot of talking while we were dating. I'll admit, I'm not the best communicator and I'm much more comfortable with silence than Josh, and so sometimes he would have to pry the conversation out of me, but I really did love talking with him! He was a very good listener and it was fun to get to know him better. At first we talked about the basic things: our favorite food, what we wanted to do after college, and childhood vacations, but soon we started diving into the deeper things: past regrets, how many children we wanted someday, how we dealt with anger or disappointments. It's always hard for me to open up myself to others, to make myself vulnerable, but it was comforting doing so because Josh was showing me all of his imperfections at the same time. And that made me like him even more.
On June 19th my brother Jackson returned from serving his mission in the Philippines! Josh and I were making dinner at my place that night when we got a surprise Skype call from him at home! One of my other brothers Justus, Josh, and I were headed to Billings that weekend, and I couldn't wait to see my brother! But I was also nervous because this would be the first time that Josh met my entire family.
Now there's a few things you should know. First, Josh was my very first boyfriend. Sure, I had liked a few guys and gone on some dates, but this was the first official relationship I had ever been in. None of my siblings in fact, had been in a serious relationship up to that point. Two, my family is a family of teasers. We love to tease and playfully mock each other. It's just what we do. Especially when it comes to someone having a crush. This being so, I had developed the tendency to avoid telling my family about dates I was going on, guys I liked - just guys in general. I had been teased mercilessly about a high school crush for years and I didn't want that repeated. And third, remember the whole mission papers thing? Well I had had several talks with my parents on the phone about it whenever I had my bouts of confusion about serving a mission, but due to reason #2, I had never really mentioned Josh. My mom knew that I had been upset about a boy around Easter, but to my knowledge, that was about as far as they knew about everything.
So the week of my bishop's interview/the week Josh and I became official, I had called my parents before devotional that week and talked to them separately about my most recent confusion of whether I should serve a mission or not. I told my mom "that there's this guy" but I wasn't sure. I didn't tell my dad about this (I figured my mom would tell him), though. So when a week later I post on Facebook that I was in a relationship with Josh Guin, my poor dad was quite broadsided. (I later found out from a brother that my dad's exact words were, "Who's this schmuck who's keeping my daughter from going on a mission?!") So not surprisingly, he called me a couple of days later, asking when he was going to meet "this guy". And so, not even a month into us dating, Josh was joining Justus and I as we headed up to Billings for the weekend. I was terrified!
I was so excited to see Jackson, that as soon as we parked in front of the house, I bolted out and sprinted up the stairs to the kitchen to give him a hug. And then I remembered that I had left my new boyfriend in the car. Oops! Luckily, he had followed Justus inside, and I was able to introduce him to everyone. Josh was easily 6 inches taller than anyone in my family, and so it took all of 30 seconds before my littlest three brothers were climbing all over him like a jungle gym. And they thought he was the coolest person ever (still do, in fact), and wanted to spend every minute with him. The next morning, for example, Josh got woken up by Jacoby poking him in the back, and when Josh turned around, Jacoby was right in his face, saying, "It's time to get up. It's morning!" Luckily Josh thought it was cute and was such a champ with the boys all weekend! They had him playing with them with their toys, jumping on the trampoline, and Jacoby and Jordan even wanted him to join us in the family pictures we had taken that weekend, haha!
And the rest of the family loved Josh too! Jackson told me months later that he knew we were going to get married as soon as he saw the two of us together that weekend. My mom told me that my dad and her hadn't seen any "red flags." I'll take it! I felt bad for unintentionally putting Josh in a bad spot with my parents before they had even met him, but he seemed to be winning them over, so I could breathe easier.
All in all, it was a wonderful weekend, and it was a relief that Josh hadn't gone running when he met all of the crazy Berg kids. Seeing the way Josh played with and was patient with my little brothers made me like him even more, and I couldn't wait to see where this thing we had going was going to take us :)
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