And It's All Thanks To A Slumber Party

The Day We Met

The summer of 2010 was a busy, enchanted, and life changing summer. Among things like high school graduation, my brother Brian returning from a two-year mission in Virginia, a long-awaited trip to Spain, and a road trip around the US, that was the summer that I met my honey buns. ♥

It was on that crazy road trip actually. Family friends from Spain visited with us that summer and we all decided to take a LDS church history road trip (and stop by a few fun places on the way to visit family friends). Our stops were as followed: Nauvoo IL, Estes Park CO, Los Angeles CA, Las Vegas NV, and of course St. George and Salt Lake City UT.

Here is a map of our travels so you can imagine indeed how crazy of a trip this was. Oh! And did I mention that this was in fact a ROAD trip. There were 10 (sometimes 11) of us in an eleven passenger van. It could get stuffy at times with those long hours on the road with ten other people in an enclosed space. Needless to say, it was an adventure.

Well, there were many adventures to speak of on that trip, but this my dear friends, is about the day I met the love of my life. As I mentioned earlier my brother Brian served a 2 year  LDS mission in Virginia. While he was there he had multiple mission companions, many of whom (you guessed it!) lived in Utah. ;) Brian met up with many of his mission companions on that trip, Bryce Allred being one of them (who am I kidding, he wasn't just one of them, he was THE one!)

That fated day my family was visiting the MTC in Provo, UT. Brian had previously arranged to meet with Bryce there and then leave to what he called a "slumber party with Allred." We were standing at the legendary Missionary Training Center plaque when I had my first real-life-slow-motion-moment. The street light turned red and the walk sign came on as the stud-muffin of my future husband walked along the cross walk towards me -- well, towards Brian, but we were standing right next to each other.

Left to Right: Brian, Brandon, Bryce, Stephanie, Mama, Me

How flattering, right? I will always look back on this photo as the first picture my husband and I took together and my hand is in front of my face. :P 

Well, after we all met one another and hugged, as we Spaniards often do when meeting strangers, Brian and Bryce went off and had their slumber party that night. The next day was my day. Bryce tagged along with my family as we walked around temple square. That was the day that Bryce and I talked for hours, getting to know one another and sure, a  little flirting. We basically became best friends that day. 

After that trip I had to go back home to Texas, but Bryce and I kept contact via text messaging, phone calls, and of course facebook. Months passed and we kept contact this way. In the month of October, on the day of Halloween, Bryce made it official by asking me to be his girlfriend. And  thus began our long distance relationship. Luckily it wasn't long distance for all that long. Sometime that fall I was accepted into Brigham Young University and the following January I moved to Provo, Utah, where Bryce and I continued to date, fall in love, and eventually get married. But that story, my dear friends, is cause for an entirely new blog post. 

Until then...