Henry's first trip to Salt Lake in years...

During Henry's trip to Utah he fell in love with the following: Silver Fork Lodge up Big Cottonwood Canyon, Hires, and Temple Square. We bought a Christmas tree which has a story to go along with it, but you will have to ask Henry yourself for that one. I also took him to Park City and out to dinner to meet Luce (my sister), Derek (her boyfriend), and my Mom. I am sure my family thought I had lost my marbles, but I was growing more and more attached to him by the minute. We exchanged Christmas presents. Henry had gotten me jewelry from the Silver Shop in Avon, and I had made him a Giants quilt. One word to the wise, it is very painful to tie a quilt using 100% cotton, I would not recommend it to anyone!!!

Just a little background on Henry. So he was born in Salt Lake, UT at University Hospital, but only lived here for a year before his parents moved to Avon, CT. From there he moved to Virginia as a teenager and then back to CT in the summer of 2007. The only other trip Henry made to Salt Lake was during his stay at the MTC on his way to his Billings, Montana mission. And that was over five years ago. So I made it a point to show Henry some of the great things about Salt Lake.

Our First Official Date

Our first official date! We went to the gateway for dinner at Applebees, then to the movies to see August Rush. Then Henry took me on a carriage ride around temple square and it was sooo romantic, except he spent pretty much the whole time chatting with the driver...

The Airpoe...Henry's Version

So I am getting all excited to fly out and see this beautiful woman that I have talked to on the phone for every night for who knows how long. I have my bag packed, only to have my flight cancelled due to weather conditions. I fly out the next day on a Friday with a layover in Minneapolis. All I am thinking about is, man I hope she likes me. I finally get to Salt Lake, go down to baggage claim, wait for my bag, for what seems like an eternity. This beautiful woman, I have just flown 2400 miles to see, is supposedly on her way to pick me up. But in all actuality she was trying to be sneaky, but what she didn't know, is how I am always ten steps ahead of her. Because when she called to tell me she was running late, I could hear the airport noise in the background of her cell phone, so I knew she was in the building somewhere. So I am there waiting for my bags, I make my way around knowing she is somewhere close. So I search the baggage claim area because I have this intuition that she is hiding somewhere. This is the best part. I watched her come down the escalator, walk out one door (as she was trying to be sneaky) and walk back in the other door right behind my baggage claim area. So at this point I get a call on my cell phone and it's her. She doesn't know that I have spotted her long before, made my way around acting like I am looking for something. Eventually I see her lean up against a column. At this point I am walking on the other side of the baggage claim area opposite her and I tell her that I see her leaning up against the column. It was seconds later that she spotted me and I nonchalantly made my way in a big circle to meet her. The first thing I thought when we first met, how much more beautiful she was in person than her pictures on the computer. I finally get my bags, and we make our way to the car. Of course in all her hurrying she forgets where she has parked the car and it takes a minute to find it. Of course it is always nerve racking meeting someone in person after you have only spoken to them on the phone, but before getting in the car, before we knew it, our first kiss happened right then and there. The rest is history and I am sure you will hear of more stories to come. Oh and the reason this post is titled Airpoe, is a long running joke between us. It was something Kara said one time when she was speaking faster than her brain could keep up with, so the Airport will forever be known as the Airpoe.

The Airpoe...

Henry and I first met at the Salt Lake City airport. Now those of you who know me, will not be surprised by this story, because of course it didn't go as planned. The plan was to tell Henry to come outside after baggage claim where I would be waiting with my car. Instead, I decided to tell a little bit of a fib and go inside to the baggage claim area myself to check him out before he ever saw me. So I get there early and am waiting in the baggage claim area. Waiting, waiting, waiting. I get a call on my cell phone, it was Henry, I asked him where are you, I am running late and want to know which baggage claim you are at so that I know which terminal to drive to. As I continue to wait at the baggage claim area, I start to look at the numbers. It wasn't soon after that I realized I was in the wrong terminal all together!!!! So I have to run back to parking and move my car over to the other terminal, because I don't want him to know what a dork I am. So finally I make it over to the other terminal and try to be super sneaky, because I don't want him to see me first. Now I think I have been smooth, so much as going out of one door and walking down the length of the terminal to go into the door right behind his baggage claim, yes the correct one at this point. So I walk in, with butterflies in my stomach. I look around, I walk around the baggage claim area, no Henry, where the heck could he be? Finally after calling him on my cell phone there is an answer. I said "Where are you?". I will tell you but first, you should hear his side of the story.

How we met....

So I know many of you are wondering how we met. As fate would have it, we discovered each other on LDS-Planet, a dating website for LDS singles. It was December 2007 and I was online checking my messages from the site. There is a feature on this website where when you log on it will show random pictures of three selected individuals that are logged on at the same time. Apparently my picture came up when Henry logged in at this same time, 2400 miles away in Avon, CT. At this time Henry sent an e-mail to my profile. He said "I see we live close, we should go out sometime." When I logged on the next time to read my messages I was baffled. What does he mean, we live close, clearly his profile says that he is in Connecticut. So I responded by telling him that we don't live anywhere close to each other, he must be confused. Little did I know that Henry was just trying to get a response from me. He knew we didn't live close. After that we started chatting on msn messenger. One night, he said let me call you. I was pretty reluctant and I definitely had no idea what I was getting myself into when I picked up the phone for the first time with Henry on the other end of the line. It is all history from there. We started talking all the time. Everytime I got off the phone my checks hurt from smiling and laughing. For those of you who know Henry, "you know what I'm talking about"! We knew we had to meet, so in December he flew to Salt Lake for our first official Date.