Falling in Love

I was a little dark haired Brown eyed 5 year old when I noticed this really cute 8 year old boy in jeans and a cowboy hats that lived on an adjoining ranch in Arizona. He had a sprinkle of freckles across his face and his most endearing trait to me was his little ears drooping from the weight of his hat.... I fell in love.... totally and completely. I told my mother that He was the one !! I would dream about him and tell mom about the dreams and that I was going to marry him some day. She would laugh at me thinking that is a long way off Stephanie ... As I got older I watched him quietly and because I was very shy I stayed in the back ground...Everything he did interested me... We would go with our dads and gather cattle and work them so I saw him often.... One time we had a horse race and he let me win I was 7 and he was almost 11 ... We also attended the same little church and rode the same bus to school. When I turned 9 my parents sold the ranch we had and we moved to Idaho , I lived there until I was 15.... I thought of him all the time ... telling my friends I was going to marry this boy named Forrest ! My parents would tease me about marrying him all the time growing up. Forrest and his family sold their place during this time and moved to Missouri to buy a place their... My parents soon came to Missouri to visit them one summer and while there took a picture of Forrest....He was 17 by then... almost 18... and for Christmas that year they had it enlarged and framed it and gave it to me for Christmas.... I kept that picture next to my bed for a long time .... My parents decided to move Missouri so we sold our place in Council Idaho and bought a place in Missouri...By then he had a girlfriend ....I was 15 ..Forrest took me out for my first date when I turned 16.... Poltergeist and Ice cream.. I was so scared to be with him....that night he bought the ice cream to see how I ate it ... he told me later he did that to see what kind of kisser I would be.... goodness I must have impressed him .... He still remembers what I wore that nigh wink emoticon.... He then set me up with another great guy Allen Wilkins who I dated for 21/2 years... Forrest was called to serve a mission to Honduras I wrote him as a friend the whole time he was out even tho he had a girlfriend ... I figured it couldn't hurt!! haha and it didn't !! I was there when he got off the plane in July as was his girlfriend and 20 other girls it seemed ..... But.. I had his little nephew that was 2 years old when he got home so I went up front and showed him to Forrest and was the first of the girls to greet him ... smart I know !!!( That night as I left the airport I had a warm feeling wash over me and I knew he was going to be mine ... that coming Sunday My dad was sitting in church when Forrest reported his mission and Dad was given the strong knowledge at that time that Forrest would be his son in law ... Dad never told me this until after we had become engaged...) Forrest asked me out the next night !! we went goofy golfing and to McDonald's He had been craving an American Hamburger after 1 1/2 years in Honduras and he could only speak Spanish and could not remember how to say Hamburger in English it was funny to listen to him talk. A few weeks later he left for BYU....I went out to BYU at this time .... yep you guessed it to be closer to him..... it was then he discovered he loved me !! We were at the park in Provo and laying out in the sun and he rolled over and looked at me and said I think I love you ! I did not know what to say so I said nothing ....but inside I was saying yes ! yes ! he loves me !! we spent a lot of time together with his friend Lamont and his girlfriend Tiffany who got married as well later on.... I made Banana Cream Pies for him every other day .... I went back home to Missouri and had pies sent to him from a restaurant they were delivered almost daily so he would not forget me !! IT worked !! he could not stand just calling me .... so he transferred to SMS and we were together again.... A few months later on Feb 14, 1985 he asked me to Marry Him... in his pickup truck.... we were on our way to a formal dance and He stopped the truck and had a song playing that was about giving up his freedom hahah...... he handed me the ring box and asked will you marry me ? I said YES!!! We were married May 23 1985 in Mesa Arizona Temple for Time and All Eternity ....We now have 8 children three son-in- laws, 210 grandchildren, and I love him more today then I did when I first saw him and then said yes to him on May 23 1985... He is my Best Friend, My only Love, He would do anything for me and I for him ... would I do it over again? Yes a million times yes .... God has Blessed us to be together and we try daily to always work on our marriage because it is our gift to each other and to our children and to the Lord ...