Temple and Rockies Game

Earlier this year, our church announced that the Denver Temple was going to open the baptistery on weekdays.  This would enable the youth to serve in the temple over the summer, and they've had an amazing response to it!

Wednesday we took my brother Cole down to the temple with us, and we all did baptisms.  It was a super cool experience to be able to participate in that with Cole.   They told us at the end that 97 youth were in the temple that day, and over 1000 ordinances were done.  That was incredible!

After the temple, we took Cole to lunch at Cafe Rio (he had never been before), and then took him to Deseret Book where he chose his birthday present: a new phone case with a picture of a missionary suit and tie on the back.  I bought the book "Heaven is Here."  It's one of the books for our family book club in a couple months.  I started reading it yesterday.  I'll let you know what I think in a little bit.

We still had some time to kill before we went to the Rockies game that night, so we went to Ikea.  I love that place, and Cole had never been there.  As per usual, we didn't leave without a souvenir.  I've been looking for nicer pillows to put on our couch, and I finally found some I liked at Ikea!

After we were done at Ikea we headed to Coors Field for the Rockies game.  We LOVE the Rockies, but haven't been able to go to as many games as we'd like this year.  I'd only ever been to one game (that I can remember) where the Rockies won.  But now I can say I've been to two because they won that night!! 

Our engagement story

Neal really wanted to go to Zoo Lights at the Denver Zoo, and planned a date to go down there a couple weeks before Christmas.  We almost weren't able to go, but Neal worked really hard to find a time that we could go.  We finally decided on December 23, 2010.

We drove down to Denver that evening, and stood in line for about an hour.  It was FREEZING!

See?  This is me being "sad cute" because it was cold standing in line.

We finally got inside and wandered around the zoo looking at the gorgeous lights.  Neal kept trying to get me to go into a secluded place (and I must admit, I was convinced it was because he just wanted to kiss me in private).  He kept acting really strange and I couldn't figure out why he wanted to get me by myself!  It actually got to the point where he got kind of frustrated with me.  

Finally when we got to the polar bear enclosure, Neal convinced me to go down into the basement (where you can look through glass into the water of the polar bear enclosure...because ya know, polar bears will be swimming in the freezing cold water at 9:30 pm when it's pitch black...and you'll be able to see them through the pitch black water).  When we walked into the area there was another couple there and it became VERY obvious that we weren't going to be able to see any polar bears.  I immediately turned around and started to walk back up the stairs.  Neal grabbed me and said "No, just wait stay here and don't move!"  I was very confused, but listened to him and stayed put.  

When the other couple left, Neal started getting very fidgety, and kept fiddling with something behind his back.  I could NOT figure out what he was doing!  It finally started to dawn on me what was probably about to happen.  As he pulled the box with the ring in it out from behind his back, he looked at me and whispered,  

"Do you kinda sorta wanna be my wife?"

For some reason (which I still don't know, and Neal still won't let me forget) I looked at him and said "Are you serious?"  He kind of just stared at me and I exclaimed "Yes!" and started jumping up and down.  Neal swears to this time that he looked at me and said sarcastically, "No, I'm just standing here holding a ring for a joke," but I don't remember that part :)

After we had a group of girls take a picture for us, we went to one of our favorite restaurants, Buffalo Wild Wings, for dinner.  No one from our family really knew Neal was going to propose that night, so we slowly started telling family members via phone and text, and dropped a few hints on Facebook (like Neal posting "So this is what being engaged feels like....)

I honestly thought Neal was going to propose on Christmas day, so it didn't even cross my mind that he might be proposing while we were at zoo lights.  It came as a complete surprise.

See the pretty lights??  Oh, and the super happy couple.

We dated for seven months before getting engaged (read out dating story here which will also explain why Neal asked me to marry him the way he did).  We were engaged for 5 months, and got married May 13, 2011.

We took our engagement pictures in downtown Denver, in February, on a day that it was FREEZING outside.  They still turned out amazing, though, and we love them!

On 16th St.  Copyright Kelsey Hansen Photography

In City Park.  Copyright Kelsey Hansen Photography

Some random brick wall that was awesome.  Copyright Kelsey Hansen Photography

Here are a couple other random pictures from when we were engaged :)

On Christmas Day

"Blue Steel"

So happy!!

I may have just almost kicked him in the face

Goofy faces :)