So... Guess Who Has A Little Bit of News???

Let me tell you a story...

Once upon a time, there was a boy, let's call him Alan, who worked with a lady named Brenda. Brenda had lived next door to a girl, let's call this girl Heather, for several years before Heather moved to college. Brenda had been telling Alan while the two of them worked that she knew of this girl who was cute and fun and she thought Alan ought to ask out. Alan told Brenda to get the phone number and he would call the girl.

Months went by... two to be exact and finally Alan put his foot down, "Brenda, I'm tired of just hearing about this girl! I want to meet her! Get the phone number and I will ask her out!" Brenda came to visit Heather's family to drop off a Christmas present as this was about 2 weeks before the Christmas holiday.

Three days later, Heather's mother told her that Brenda had asked for Heather's phone number and that she had given the number to Brenda. Heather was shocked that her mother would do this and slightly embarrassed that some strange boy was being given her number, but the damage was already done so she wasn't going to worry about it. Heather thought, "It doesn't matter anyway. No boy EVER calls in that sort of situation." So, she put it out of her mind and promptly forgot all about it.

Two days later, Heather was visiting at a friend's house when she received a phone call from a strange number she didn't recognize. Seeing as she didn't normally answer numbers she didn't have a vague idea might be calling, she let it go to voicemail. After the voicemail was left, and her phone alerted her to the fact that the person did indeed leave a message, she decided to give it a listen.

Suddenly, a boy's voice was on her phone telling her that he'd received her number from a Brenda that he worked with and that he would like Heather to call him back. He told her to "please call back... or don't... but if you don't... I'll just call you again." She could hear the smile in his voice at the end and she knew he was either A) A very clever stalker or B) The boy Brenda had spoken to her about.

Heather panicked. She didn't want to call Alan back. She was afraid that he might actually want to take her on a date. She was afraid that if she went on a date with Alan, Alan would decide that he liked her and want to date her some more. She was afraid that if she were to date him some more, that would lead to the inevitable! She would end up falling in love with this boy... and he would leave. Just as every other boy before Alan.

Instantly, she picked up the phone and dialed her mother, only to chew her mother out for giving out her number in the first place. Her mother and friend encouraged her to at least call Alan back, but "you never know, right?"

She did. Alan picked up right away and the two had a very pleasant conversation during which Alan told her that he was at home in a little place called Emmett, ID which is about an hour north of Boise. He had gone home for the holidays and to welcome home a younger brother who had returned from his LDS mission that very day. Heather was instantly impressed that this boy would be so adamant to talk to her when he was home with his family for the holidays and trying to also spend time catching up with his brother, whom he hadn't seen for 2 years. He actually called her.

"Interesting..." Heather thought. "But a good sign!" The date was December 16th.

Alan was to stay in Emmett for 2 weeks until just after New Year's. Over the course of that time, there were several phone calls and texts sent back and forth. Heather was growing fond of hearing from this boy, but also very nervous.

When Alan returned, Heather did not get a phone call or text for about a week and she started to grow nervous. She thought that it was a nice pipe dream, but that he was never going to call again.

Until, he did.

Their first date was about a week after Alan arrived home. Alan's car had died in his driveway about 30 minutes north of where they were supposed to meet (Orange Leaf) and he had borrowed his roommate's car to come down to town. When Heather arrived at the ice cream shop, she was informed that this car, too, was dead and would have to be started with the aid of jumper cables in Heather's vehicle.

The two spent the better part of 2 hours in Orange Leaf that night, talking and laughing and eating ice cream. Then, when they went out to start Alan's car, Heather had to open the hood of the car as Alan wasn't sure how it worked. He took it in stride and Heather giggled at him trying to play it off like it was no big deal.

As they waited for Alan's car to warm up, he was telling her about how much he loved to ballroom dance and Heather got the brilliant idea that he should teach her some dance steps. Right there. In the middle of the parking lot. At 10:30 at night. In January. When it was freezing cold.

And Alan obliged her. He taught her the waltz and a basic cha-cha-cha. Heather was impressed that she could actually dance, but realized very quickly that it had very little to do with any natural ability on her part. It was more that he lead her across the asphalt very very well.

Finally, Heather could take it no longer and decided she needed to warm up in her vehicle. So, the two sat talking and laughing some more until about 11:45 when he realized that he needed to get back to his house.

He didn't call for days.... Heather worried. But then he would call and they would go out again. This went on for about 4 weeks.

Heather was due to leave at the beginning of February to go on a family trip out of the country where she wouldn't have access to a phone to talk to Alan. She made sure to see him the day she was leaving and he seemed indifferent to the idea that she was leaving. Again... she worried.

She arrived home 10 days later and immediately called him. He was in town and decided to stop by. They caught up with what had happened over the course of Heather's trip and made plans to go out the next evening together, even though it was Valentine's Day.

The next night, the two drove over to a friend's house to attend a party there, but before Heather could get out of the car, Alan took her by the hand and told her how he felt about her. He told her that he wanted to be exclusive and that he hoped things would end up going somewhere serious. He asked her if she would be ok with all of that.

Heather thought things over for a few minutes and, though she was afraid, agreed. She had wanted this for a long time too. She had been waiting the entire time she'd known him to feel for the right time to end things with him and that feeling never came. She knew that if you feel that you are walking in darkness, the best thing to do is keep going until you find the light. This time, the light found her.

So began the courtship of two people falling in love.

On April 23rd, Alan had stopped over to see Heather because she had had a rough day and they were supposed to spend the evening together, just hanging out. Nothing really big. They sat talking for awhile on the couch until finally Alan stopped her short and told her he needed to talk to her about something important.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a ring. He told her that he knew she was going to have a rough day because he was planning on giving this ring to her that night and he knew that because of that, all the things that could go wrong, would. He told her that he had been trying to put that ring on her finger for weeks and that something ALWAYS got in the way. Especially when he tried to plan something big. Something always came up and ruined his plans.

Instead, he looked at Heather with all the love in his eyes and said, "Can I please just put this on your finger finally? I've been trying so long and instead, can I just please put it on your finger?"

Heather smiled and said, "Shouldn't you ask me a question first?"

Alan smiled back and replied, "Heather... will you marry me?"

She kissed him and said, "Yes" about 3 times.

**************

This is normally where the storyteller would then say:

And they lived happily ever after. The End.

Except, this time, the storyteller is going to say this:

And they hope to live forever after, deciding to be happy even through life's ups and downs, sharing in one another's joys and pains, loving and arguing and loving some more, choosing to make one another their one and only for time and all eternity. And it's not the end, it's just the beginning.