Please Refrain from Seflies While Walking Down the Aisle

Hello again!

For anyone who was curious, we made it to Spain safely! Was it an easy or smooth trip? Absolutely not.

I have been avoiding writing this post since Sunday, but I figured it was about time as I've cleaned my entire kitchen, rearranged the furniture, done some laundry and watched a fair amount of YouTube videos on my first day being home alone. I think I've been avoiding writing this because of how much I have to write.

Going back to the trip, so much happened in such a short period of time.

First, Monday morning rolled around (this was last week) and we didn't have our visas. Our flight was scheduled for Tuesday evening and we had no idea when our visas were going to come in. Well couldn't you just go on your passport and get your visas later? That would have been ideal, but as they had our passports because the visas are stickers they put in the back, we were unable to do that.

So, Matthew called the LA consulate several times. All in vain because they just don't like talking to people. I was getting stressed and had him call just one more time. He got distracted and didn't choose an option. Surprisingly this was the trick. Instead of sending us straight to voicemail, we were able to get someone on the phone to check the status of our visas.

She called us back several ours later and informed us that she had sent them out and they were on their way. This was fantastic news! We had purchased overnight shipping so that would mean that they would come Tuesday morning, we could fly to Vegas and catch our international flight. So I booked a flight and bought our train tickets from Barcelona to Valencia.

That night we went to bed, stressed, but relieved that we had some idea of what was happening.

I had gone to the post office Monday afternoon and asked them to keep an eye out for our visas. They had agreed to call us when they arrived. She had informed me that they shouldn't arrive any later than 9:30 or 10:00 am. Monday night we were up late packing. Making sure everything weighed the right amount and thus we were up way later than we wanted to. I justified this with the knowledge that we would have lots of long travel time to sleep through.

I was anticipating the morning because if we didn't get our visas, we would be in a world of hurt.

Matthew woke me up that morning at about 9:30 and that's when the panicking started. The lady at the post office had said 9:30 10:00 at the latest. Why hadn't I heard from them? I instantly knew something had gone wrong. For some reason I needed to stay home, but Matthew went to check in at the post office and see what was going one.

They looked up our tracking numbers and it showed that our visas were still in LA. There was no way this was happening. I had purchased these international tickets months ago and everything was supposed to be done and figured out by now, yet here we were with no visas and no way to change our flights without major expenses. Matthew asked the people at the post office why our overnight shipping wasn't being honored. The manager explained that it looked like the consulate had placed our visas in a dropbox instead of taking them to an actual USPS window, and therefore missed the flight for that evening. So instead of the overnight being from Monday to Tuesday, it was now being treated like a Tuesday to Wednesday overnight shipping. This was absolutely shocking to me. It was a matter of hours, and now we had to figure out how to change our flight.

I had looked at flight change prices a couple weeks ago and they were pretty low, but now everything was sold out leaving the Vegas airport and the price jump to leave from the LA airport was about $1200. That was the original amount of the first tickets I bought.

The situation we found ourselves in was so frustrating. We had worked so hard to get to this point. Building a visa packet is not an easy task, and if you don't get it wright the first time you get rejected and have to come back - which is what happened to us. We had gone to the LA consulate in May and they informed us that we were missing documents. When we went to reschedule an appointment, the only appointment left was in August.

So not only was the waaaaay late appointment frustrating but because of that appointment, all of my preparation and planning to spend the least amount of money on our move went to waste as we had to change our flight and absorb the costs. I guess you could say I was upset. I was a water feature that whole afternoon.

I had to take a step back and realize what was important in that moment. Yes, money is not something to be thrown around and taken for granted, but it is something very temporal. Money is so easily replenished with some hard work, diligence, and budgeting. Education and experience, on the other hand, can be hard to come by - especially an education and experience we were being offered. So we moved forward and did what was needed to get to Spain.

Who knows why we weren't able to make our flight or why things didn't work out. At first I was really angry. I felt like this whole trip was what Heavenly Father wanted, but at the same time, He was making things very difficult for us to get over there. But, I have no idea what the bigger picture is. All that matters is that in the end we got here.

So, after the fiasco of getting our visas, we set off Wednesday morning to the SLC airport after a personal delivery from the manger of the USPS post office.

The flight for SLC to LA was rather quick and easy. A mood lightener was one of the intercom broadcast. Of all the times I actually listened to what was being said in the airport, the best thing I heard was "Please refrain from selfies while walking down the aisle. Thank you." #firstworldproblems. Our flight from LA to Stockholm was good as well. That flight was incredibly long, but everything had been going very smoothly. We sat next to a Spaniard on our last flight. He was amazing! He helped us with all the random questions we had and lighted our stress load a little. He was such a blessing.

When I had planned our flights, I made sure we had several hours in between them incase of error - except for the time between arrival in Barcelona and our train ride to Valencia.

I only had given us an 1 1/2 hour window. If it had been anywhere else, I think it would have been fine, but it was not fine. We arrived in Valencia and my jet-lag had caught up to me in Sweden and I was exhausted by the time we got to Valencia.

It is very humid here, and you could feel it the second you got off the plane. We walked over to an exchange counter and traded all our american money for Euros. This took forever. I figured it would have been a quick "Here ya go!" swap and be done, but no. She tried to upsell stuff to us and explained random things. She was quickly burning up our precious time and I had no idea how to get to the train station.

We suddenly only had an hour left and this airport is looong and of course, the money exchange was on the complete opposite side. I don't know if it is just the lazy American in me, but in that moment all I wanted were those walking escalators that make you feel invincible, but alas.. there were no such pleasures here. We had to haul our little butts, and luggage, across the airport. We were drenched in sweat.

Well we go downstairs into baggage and we have no idea where to go and our tickets don't help. I scrambled to find our luggage, which again, was on the complete opposite side of everything. So I run over there and grab our 4 extra pieces of luggage and add them to our two carry on pieces.

The Spaniard on the plane told us that we could take a train from the airport to the train station we needed to be at. This would be a lot cheaper than a cap. He was probably right, but we had no idea where this train was and we only had 30 minutes left before we needed to be on our other train.

We ran outside and grabbed a cab, and we were able to breath for about 15 minutes.. but we definitely paid for it.

I swear, in this moment, Satan was doing everything in his power to make all the things inconvenient. As you could probably guess, when we finally got to the train station, our platform was the furthest away and still no walking escalators could be found. We go down stairs and, good guess, our car was almost the very last car. We had made it with about 5 minutes to spare. Not wanting to miss our train because we were trying to get to the right cabin, we hopped on to the closest one and left our luggage in that car while we found our real seats.

The next 3 hours were relaxing, though we never actually cooled down.

When we finally reached Valencia we took a cab to our apartment. The cab driver got lost and dropped us off at a hotel, which luckily was very close to our apartment. We used someones cell phone and called our Landlord. He came and got us and showed us the apartment.

We had arrived. Valencia Spain. It was real.  I still can't really believe that I live in Spain. I've never even been to Europe, and now here I am.

The trip here was crazy and stressful, but I had my man with me and that's all I could ask for.

Dear everyone,

Currently I am sitting in my mother-in-law's spare bedroom, sleepy and tired because stayed up too late the night before and ate too much food at a friends homecoming from an LDS mission. Typical Sunday afternoon. If you know me, this (the whole blog thing) is not something I do, but upon request, and upon a realization that it might be easier to keep a journal this way while also keeping everyone updated on our future adventures, I might as well try.

To start off, I wanted to share how Matthew, my husband, and I met...

It was back in 2012. We had both started a new year at Snow College in Ephraim Utah. He had just returned home from an LDS mission in Houston, Texas and I had just graduated high school. He was in my choir class and I had noticed him before but that was about it. 

My mom had asked me, a couple of months into my first semester of collage why I didn't have a boy friend. I had never had a boyfriend, and I didn't necessarily feel like I needed my mothers permission to have one, especially now that I was 18 and moved out, but this conversation sparked the thought, "Why don't I have a boyfriend?" She then proceeded to tell me about how a friend of her has a grandson attending the same college as me. When she described him, it sounded like the boy I noticed in my choir class...

Being the excellent communicator that I am, I went up to him that following Monday and the first thing that came out of my mouth was "Hey! my mom knows your dad!" He then looked at me with confusion and said "Oh.... cool." Then proceeded to talk to the girls walking him to class. Why was he so weird about it? Why did he have nothing to say? Well, maybe because I had never talked to him before, or maybe because that is a terrible conversation starter, and maybe because he was obviously more interested in the cute girls that he already knew, and plus, the statement that I said was wrong. My mom had never met his father. She had no idea who he was.

This initial contact didn't spark any further communication between the two of us, and who can blame him. Thankfully, a good friend of his, Ryan, lived across the hall from a few good friends of mine. They all became involved in a final project that included a Beatles concert. Most of my friends performed parts of the concert and I would follow along to be with them. 

This put me in contact with Matthew more than I ever had before. By this time I had a huge crush on the kid. He was funny and cute and made me laugh more than anyone. I knew I wanted to date him. Ironically it was the same boy my mom was talking to me about after asking why I didn't have a boyfriend. 

The day of the concert, Matthew heard me singing one of my favorite songs with my friend as a warm up tune for her. He came up to me and asked me if I knew all the words. I said yes, but he looked at me right in the eyes and asked again "Like, do you know them well enough to sing them with out words? In front of people?" This made me hesitate, but I confidently said "Yes? Why?" He then asked me to sing the opening act with him. He wanted to practice the number before hand, but got too busy setting up and all of the sudden it was time to sing "The Luckiest" by Ben Folds in front of several people I didn't know with someone I'd never sung with. Thankfully Matthew is such a talented Musician that things worked out quite well, but it was during that song I really began to fall for him. 

Because that was a final project for a class, that meant the semester was coming to an end. I knew I wasn't going to see him for a while and said my good byes. I had a great Christmas break, but I can't even describe how excited I was to be going back in January. Matthew had had a girl friend before school let out and I was so hoping that things didn't last during the break and that this would be my time to slip in. 

Sure enough, I got back to school and he was single. I had no idea what I needed to do to get into his life, but I was ready to try. The beginning of the school year was very difficult for me. I wanted to move out of my apartment with my interesting room mates to a single bedroom across from my best friend at the time. Everything was going okay, I had moved all of my stuff over and was going to get things settled when I found out I might have to move everything back. I also was having a hard time with the schedule and fees.. to say the least, I was stressed. 

I remember I went to the housing department the third day of school and was told that I will most likely have to move everything back because they couldn't find my new contract and it was too late to sign another one. I was so mad. I had missed class to make sure everything was going okay and was told the exact opposite. I stormed off to my class right as it was getting out just as Sierra, my best friend, walked down the hall. She could tell that I was frustrated and I began to pour all of my frustrations on to her and broke down into tears. Well, of course, we had stopped to talk about all of this right in front of a class room door. Class got out and students began to shuffle out of class. I tried to regain my composer at this time due to embarrassment, but it was obvious I had been crying. Even though I was embarrassed, I couldn't really have cared if any of those people saw me cry. I did, how ever care very much if Matthew had seen me cry, and sure enough, he was one of the students that walked out of the class room. 

He didn't even say anything. He just came over and gave me the biggest hug. Well I was mad, but grateful that he cared, though I felt pitied. So, after a couple of seconds, I went to let go. I lifted my arms and said thank you but he just held on tighter. I was so confused. We had talked and sung together the one time, but we were what I considered friends. So I hugged him for another couple of seconds and tried to let go but the same thing happened. It was then I realized he genuinely wanted me to feel like someone cared. It was the best feeling. I was finally able to relax and I gave him the biggest hug of gratitude I could muster. I began to have the biggest butterflies and I realized that if this is who he is all the time, this is the person I want to be with for the rest of my life. 

All it was was a hug, but it meant so much more than that to me. 

The following weeks were filled with flirting and hanging out. The next thing I knew, it was almost Valentine's Day and all I wanted was for him to be mine. The school put on a Valentine's Day activity with a bunch of fun stations and crafts. Well, I love crafts, so I was there. No question. I was sitting at the "Make your own Valentine's Day card" table with Sierra. We talked about who we should make valentines for and what they should say. The whole time wanting to ask her if I should make one for Matthew. I finally brought up the subject and she pounced on the idea. She thought it was great and that I should give it to him right away. Well. No. That is way tooooo bold. If I had to give it to him now, it couldn't be a valentine. I didn't want to tell him that I liked him and then be rejected. It just had to be a card.... with no reason..... During valentines? Impossible. I suddenly remembered his birthday was the 16th. I had a reason. I would make him a birthday card... with hearts all over it.. Yep! Sounds like a great idea. He'll never know. 

I finished my card and walked over the button making station. This ended up being one of my favorite things. You got to look through magazines and find cool artsy pictures and make them into pin button things. I made like 15. They finally told me I wasn't allowed to make anymore. But while I was making them I got a text. I opened the message and it was from Matthew. All it said was "look up." I instantly had butterflies trying to get out of my stomach. That could only mean that he was here. He had seen me and he was staring at me. Nervously I looked up and scanned the GSC. I caught his eye across the open space. He could not have looked more handsome. He gave me the cutest half smile and I suddenly was very warm and I knew that I was the color of a cherry tomato. I looked back down with the biggest grin on my face. He was looking at me. I knew I had to give him the card. 

I honestly don't remember giving him the card, but I do remember the weekend that followed the card making. I'm not going to lie, I rather disliked my singles ward in Ephraim and so I went home almost every single Friday. I had work this particular weekend and had to stay in Ephraim. I didn't have tons of friends so I hung out by myself most of Saturday and Sunday morning. Usually, we had Sunday dinner at Barb's house, but I was by myself. I knew I was always welcome, but I was nervous to stop by, but I was hungry. So, at around 6, way later than she serves dinner, I went over there. By myself.  I can't express to you how I don't do things by myself. That was such a not Melissa thing to do, but  I really wanted Barb's food. 

Well, I went inside and there was a completely different crowd there than I thought. It was Matthew's friend group. Not only was it amazing food, it was probably the hardest I had laughed in a long time. During dinner, I was informed that his friends had created a business card for Matthew. This was no ordinary business card. Since Matthew's previous break up his friends took the liberty of trying to find "the one". They wanted to let the ladies of Snow College to know Matthew was available. How kind of them, right? Well it would have been if they had discussed this with Matthew and let him know, but alas, he was unaware. He had no idea that his friends where passing out these business cards that let them know Matthew was "Single and ready to mingle". They had provided his name and number and informed these fortunate ladies that he was expecting a call. I thought that was the funniest prank I'd every heard. By the time dinner was over, I didn't want to leave, because that meant I would have to go home and be by myself for the rest of the night, or at least until Sierra had come home. That did not sound appealing at all, but I also didn't want to impose on their plans for the evening. I was so grateful when John, a friend of Matthew, asked me if I would like to join them. 

They were heading off to a fireside. As a reminder, this was the Sunday before Valentine's day. We were in a singles ward. I'll give you one guess as to what this fireside was about. You got it. Celestial Marriage and how to find your spouse. We got there right as the fireside started and we had to sit in the very back. He sat next to me. I was over-the-top happy. Then he asked if it would be okay if he put his arm of the back of my seat. Of course I said yes. I would have screamed it, but we had already started our spiritual lesson of the evening, and I felt that would be inappropriate. At this time I was still unsure if Matthew liked me or not, but I wanted to believe that he did. I came to realize only part of his feelings by the end of the fireside. Throughout the entire talk, he would pull me close and whisper in my ear to tell me his thoughts about the speaker. He would pull me unreasonably close and whisper exceptionally quiet in my ear. Every single time those butterflies would come back. I was seriously floating on clouds.

I don't think my feet touched the ground the rest of the night. After the fireside, another friend of Matthew invited me to Sundae Sunday's. Yes! Another opportunity to not go home and to be with Matthew. They took me to my apartment and I changed into some pants and we went and got some ice cream at the Bishop's house. We laughed and sang hymns for a couple of hours. It was amazing to me how many people knew Matthew and loved to talk to him. Matthew has a personality that is so attractive. Not just to me but to everyone he meets. He has the ability to talk to anyone and make them feel important and get them to laugh. 

Once again it was time for us to leave, and once again I didn't want to go home alone. This time, no one was inviting me to anything. I had brought a friend with me to Sundae Sunday's and we had build a fort of blankets over the weekend together. She, being way more bold than I was capable of, invited the boys over to check out our cool blanket fort. I was embarrassed, but like I said, I didn't want to go home and be alone, so I let them come up. 

We talked and laughed and somehow everyone was tickling everyone. I thought it was awkward and little childish, but I went with it, and I'm glad I did. Matthew would come over to me and tickle me just enough to bother me and I would make him stop by grabbing his hand. He would pull away and wait a couple of seconds and do it again. Every time I would stop him he would hold on to my hand just a little longer than the previous time till eventually he never let go. 

I didn't know what was going on. Did he like me, or was this something that he does all the time? Like I mentioned earlier, Matthew has a very attractive personality, and I was definitely not the only girl that had been attracted to him that night. Had he held their hands too? What does this mean? As you may have been thinking, it was very late by this time and our dorms did have a curfew. Our RA came up and let us know that everyone needed to go home. 

Everyone left rather quickly and I didn't hear from Matthew for a couple of days. I went up to Barb's office to discuss this predicament I was in. I liked this boy, and I was pretty sure he liked me back, but he hadn't made any effort to talk to me since he held my hand. I was worried that it didn't really mean anything. So, I get into her office and I noticed something interesting sitting on her desk. Along side her professional card and references, she had a large stack of these business cards with Matthew's information on it. 

It was then I had the brilliant idea of how I could get his number. As of this point, the only way I could contact him was through facebook. I took a card and decided to text him. On the card there where owls, and underneath it said "Owl be expecting your call". Well I decided to go with the owl theme and texted "Woo do you think this is". I soon got a call from him, but I didn't answer because I knew he would be able to tell who it was. He eventually figured out that it was me and gave me a call.

This was no ordinary call. He called me to ask me on a date! I was thrilled. Maybe this meant he liked me! This particular date was no ordinary date either. It was February 14. Valentine's Day. He was my first, and now my only, valentine. He was also the first boy to ask me out since going off to college. I was stoked for many different reasons.

He called me that morning and picked me up around six. We went to a basketball game. For all those who don't know me... I hate basket ball. When I was about six or seven, I decided to join a basketball team. I was part of the Junior Jazz and I was so excited. I show up to practice and they point me to where my team is. They must have missed my very blonde pony tail and feminine features as I walked over to a team of boys. I thought that the teams must be mixed. I practiced and hoped for the best. I was the only girl that showed up that day... and the next day.... and all the days I was on that team. If you have met any six or seven year old boys, they are not particularly fond of girls... let alone girls on their basketball team.. I sure feel that. During games, my own team mates would take the ball out of my hands. Fact of the matter is: Boys are mean, ball hogs, and I've hated basketball ever since. 

So you could say I was not particularly thrilled when I found out we were going to a Snow College basket ball game, but I put on a happy face and off we went. Well, everything went as I thought it would. I ended up rooting for the wrong team a couple of time. Matthew had to explain most of the rules more than once and I still didn't get what was going on by the end. So the basketball was kind of a bummer, but the date itself wasn't going as well as I had hoped either.

Again with Matthew's attractive personality, even more girls came up and talked to him. That wasn't the issue. The issue was when he would talk to them more than he would talk to me. He started giving off mixed signals. During the game he held my hand again, but he would hide it under the bleachers so no one could see. I didn't like that. I started to wonder if he was as awesome as he had been when he had given me that amazing hug a few weeks previous. He wasn't embarrassed then, why does he care now? 

The game finally ended and we went over to their apartment to play games. It was a blast. We made terrible rice crispy treats and ate them anyway. Still, Matthew held my hand in secret. He took me home and gave me a good night hug. I was the happiest I had been in a long time. A few weeks went by without any word from Matthew.  I had figured that he had moved on and so I began to move one, still sad that it was only a one time thing.

After a few weeks I get a phone call out of the blue. It was Matthew asking me out on another date! I was shocked. We had only texted a few times since the last date and I was sure that he wasn't interested in any more, but I was wrong. 

He picked me up and walked to the dorm rooms next door. They were cooler because they were brand new and had a game room up on the top floor, equipped with a pool table. We played a couple of rounds and decided to call it good. The couple we had gone on the date with had been dating for quite some time. We were under the impression that we were going to stop by my room and get some stuff before we leave and get dinner or something. Well our friends disappeared and we were left alone. 

It had been such a long time since I had seen him I didn't want him to leave, so I asked him if he wanted to keep hanging out. Luckily he said yes. We walked into my room and talked for a couple of minutes. I felt like a hostess and like something needed to be planned. We couldn't just sit there! He would get bored and leave. I offered several different things, but we decided on a movie.

I had mentioned that I love the movie "O, Brother Where Art Thou", which shocked him. Apparently no one he had met had even seen the movie, so of course we decided to watch it together. We sat on the floor and set up the laptop on a chair. I was just enjoying the time I was able to share with him, not really thinking of much else. 

Half way through the movie, I noticed that he kept looking over at me. I would make eye contact for just a few seconds, get nervous, and look away. Each time though, he would look at me longer and longer. When he wouldn't be staring at me, he would be scooting just a little bit closer. He got the point where he was so close that if he turned his head to look at me, and I would turn mine, our faces would be centimeters apart. 

Eventually he didn't look away. I made eye contact several times back and forth till finally I realized he wasn't going to back down. He leaned in slowly but he wasn't going to come any closer. It was then I took the leap of faith and I kissed him. He had presented the 90% and I finished with the 10%.

He looked at me and asked me if we were dating. I was still caught up in the moment to have an answer ready. I said exactly what I was thinking, "I don't know?" In this moment, he impressed me immensely. He looked at me and said, "Lets go home and pray about it and then we can talk this weekend." I was grateful for the time that I had to think, because I was upset that he hadn't talked to me, but he was the best person I had met since coming to college. 

We decided that we would try out a relationship, and lots more happened after that moment, but from that day forward I knew I had found the one person who would love me through the thick and the thin of life. I threw a curve ball and left on a mission 6 months after dating. He was so faithful and waited for me to come home just to marry me a month later. 

He is the best thing that has ever happened to me and we are now moving to Spain to experience more adventures together, and here I will be sharing them with you.