Hello, blogosphere. The Whitneys have arrived! Most of you know us but, as a way of introduction, I will tell you a little about ourselves. Bryan and I met on April 28, 2010. He came to a birthday party at my apartment where he saw my masterful skills playing Dr. Mario and was impressed. We had a summer of flirtation and frustration but in the end it all came together and we decided to date and, eventually, get married. If you want more details you can read the
long version.
I had just walked in my graduation from Brigham Young University and gotten home to my apartment complex from a weekend spent with family to find that a lot of new people had moved in. You always hope that maybe you can meet someone when you move into a new ward or when others move in but this had never worked out for me so I tried not to get my hopes up. My roommates and I had decided to have a birthday party at our apartment for our friend John and we invited everyone, including all the new people. At the party John asked me to play Dr. Mario with him on my old NES. I guess a bunch of people had walked in while we were playing but I didn't notice until someone behind me said, "Woah, who is that on the left?" I smirked because I was the one playing on the left. Bryan told me later that he was impressed seeing a girl playing video games with such skill-- lucky for him (and I!) that I was playing the one game that I am really good at. After it was over I sat down next to the guy who had asked, who introduced himself as Bryan Whitney. We chatted a little and I found out he was from Virginia and that he was studying Computer Science. Later that night my roommate Alicia and I were discussing the party and the new people in the ward. She teases me now, saying that I kept eagerly asking things like, "What did you think about Bryan? Didn't you think he was cool?" and that she knew from the moment she found out he was from Virginia that I would probably have a crush on him because I had a thing for east coasters.
Well, that was the beginning of a very frustrating summer. My interest was piqued by Bryan at the party but I didn't automatically have a crush on him. I wanted to have a lot of interests and keep my options open but, initially, it seemed like Bryan was showing a lot of interest in me and that drew me in so that I forgot about other guys. He'd gotten my number because we were all going to have a movie night one time and after that he texted me a lot about random things. We flirted a lot and I felt like he showed me more attention than other girls in the ward but then he would also back off a lot. It was confusing-- I kept getting mixed signals of if he actually liked me or not. So, that is how the summer progressed. We would flirt a lot in the pool, at ward activities, on Gmail Chat, etc.... and things would seem to go really well but then something would happen that would be so confusing and frustrating. Back and forth, back and forth. We ended up going on one date that summer but nothing happened after that. And so, when the summer ended and Alicia and I were set to move, I decided to just be done with it all and move on, or so I thought.
Even though I was moving on, Bryan and I were still good friends. Through all the flirting and frustration of the summer we had built up a pretty good friendship, helped a lot by talking on Gmail Chat a lot. One night I was having a hard time not regarding Bryan, but dating in general. I made my chat status say, "Sigh." Bryan instant messaged me asking what was up. He specifically asked, "Is some boy pulling your ponytail?" I think I said something along the lines of, "The problem is that no boys are pulling my ponytail." That lead to the most open conversation we had ever had about dating. Eventually we finally started talking about why we didn't date in the summer and a lot of it had to do with Bryan just not being sure what he wanted. I felt at peace. I felt like I had gained closure and could move on. And then he asked me on a date.
I thought, since we'd just had this conversation, that it was a friend date. My mom says that what I said to her was, "Now, mom. This really isn't a big deal, okay? Bryan and I are going on a date." She'd, of course, heard the whole saga throughout the summer. We went to BYU Service Dates where we colored books like "Brown Bear, Brown Bear" for kids. After when we were walking to the car Bryan stopped and said, "Do you just want to... not go home yet?" So we took a walk around BYU campus, just talking. We ended up going to In 'N Out for burgers and I got home around midnight. It was great. "We're friends," I told Alicia, "We're not going to date." I told my mom that I wasn't going to hope for anything-- I wasn't going to put any eggs in his basket... but then I amended, "Maybe just one little, baby egg." In the following week I saw a lot of Bryan. He later told me he was making excuses to see me. One night he invited me over to eat some of the first loaf of bread he'd ever made (baking bread is one of his favorite hobbies). Alicia and I came and it ended up that she was talking with his roommates in the kitchen while he was showing me something on his computer. It was just us-- he used that opportunity to ask me out again.
We went to Classic Skating and I was nervous because I am very uncoordinated. He told me I could hold his hand and when I did it made skating a lot easier and more enjoyable. After, we went to Panda Express to get something to eat and on the way we were talking about him balancing me by holding my hand and he asked me, "Does that count?" I said, "What do you mean?" He changed the topic and we got our food. After, we sat in the Panda Express parking lot and ended up talking about his comment. I said, "It depends. Did you want to hold my hand?" So, we started talking about dating each other. We were initially going to hold off because we thought it would be crazy to go home to our roommates and, out of the blue, say, "Well, we're dating," but the more we talked about it the more we decided to just go for it. The next day we decided to hike the Y because, alumnus and all, I had never done it before. We hiked it and when we got to the top we had our first kiss. The next day, September 26, 2010, we were officially dating on Facebook.
By Thanksgiving time things were going very well and Bryan had invited me to go to his mom's house in Morgan. A couple of days before we went up Bryan gave me a note he had written as part of an FHE activity telling me how thankful he was for me and the things I had done for and with him. He signed it, "Love, Bryan." I said, "Did you mean everything you said?" and he said, "Yes." I said, "Every word?" and he said, "Yes, Alyssa, I meant to sign 'Love, Bryan.'" It wasn't until we were at his mom's house, after Thanksgiving that he officially told me he loved me. He came out to Maryland after Christmas and visited me and my family. The week we spent away from each other before Christmas was torture. We kind of realized then how hard it was to be away from each other and we started talking about getting married.
After talking about it a lot, we decided we did want to get married and so, at the end of January, we bought a ring. I knew the proposal was coming but not when or how. Bryan had been asking me how my sister's had gotten engaged. I didn't think much of it other than he was trying to get a sense for proposals. The Monday after we bought the ring he asked me to go to Borders with him and so we headed up University Avenue and... passed Borders. It felt familiar to how my oldest sister, Hailey, was proposed to. They had driven up the canyon and Brian, her then-husband-to-be, said he felt something with the car and that he was going to pull over and check the tire. When he had he asked her to get something out of the glove compartment. She got out and said, "That isn't in there... but there is a ring." He said, "Well, go get it!" and so they got engaged. So, Bryan is driving me up the canyon and he says he feels something wrong with the car and pulls into a parking lot. "No!" I say as he gets out of the car and comes around to my side, "You cannot be duplicating Hailey's proposal right now. Bryan! You can't do this!" Then he tells me to open the glove compartment. With trembling hands I do so and find a little box. Inside, on a little square of cardboard, is a drawing of Mario that says, "Sorry, Alyssa, but your ring is in another ring box." (Like at the end of each Mario level a Toad guy says, "Sorry, Mario, but you princess in another castle.") So he teased me. What I had told him about Natalie's proposal was, "I think they just talked about it. I don't really know." I found out the day after my first fake proposal that they had talked about it and decided to get married but for the actual proposal they had gone snow shoeing. So that day Bryan picked up up and I had no idea where we were going. We drove for at least twenty minutes and ended up back near my apartment in a parking lot where we talked about getting married. Then he pulled out another little box and the picture this time was of a snow shoe and again it said, "Sorry, Alyssa, but your ring is in another ring box." On Wednesdays I would make him dinner so he came to dinner with a load of french bread. Lindsay and Morgan went to a french restaurant when they got engaged. We started eating and, as I am cutting the bread, I realize that he has carved a little hole into the bottom of the bread. Inside is another ring box, this time with a picture of french bread and the same, "Sorry, Alyssa, but your ring is in another ring box," inside. On Friday, he picked me up and wouldn't tell me where we were going. Finally, we arrived at Classic Skating, where we had gone the day we started dating. We roller skated for a little bit and then he took me to my favorite dessert restaurant in Provo, The Chocolate. After that he drove us to the parking lot of the Y hiking trail. He told me that he had already hiked the Y that day and had put the ring at the top and we had to hike the trail to get it. I didn't believe him. It was raining and I was not wearing the shoes for a hike, I said. He said, "It's too late. If you want your ring we have to hike it!" I said I didn't believe him a little more and he laughed and told me to open the glove compartment. Inside was an envelope with a letter he had written me earlier that day telling me, among other things, how much he loved me and wanted to marry me. It was a very sweet letter. Then we drove to a more secluded spot since there were so many cars in the Y lot. There, he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. This was February 4, 2011.
Bryan and I were married on April 28, 2011. There were more tornado warnings in the country on this day than any other in history, I am told. It rained in the morning and while we were in the temple but cleared up in time for pictures and stayed dry for our reception! No tornadoes hit! Someone was looking out for us.
Our photographs turned out beautifully and you can see for yourself, below.
Now we are living in Boise for the summer for Bryan's internship. Boise is very green and beautiful. We live like two minutes outside the city. It is amazing how the city just flows seamlessly into a calm, residential area. We don't have much furniture. My parents loaned us a very nice airbed and we even bought an inflatable couch! I will put up pictures of Boise and our apartment soon.
