part 4: the question that started forever

Ever since our epic first date, we had decided that we should always spend the Saturday afternoon session of General Conference in the great outdoors. We would listen to the general conference talks on the radio, and we would rock climb, and we would be inspired in the sunshine and rocky crags of Provo Canyon. It would be the best.

After the longest winter, it was finally April, and I was so psyched. The weather was just beginning to warm up. The snow was gone. The trees were finally beginning to bud. It smelled like springtime, and I was itching to be outside. And it was General Conference.

Mark and I watched the morning session of conference at the guys' apartment. Dawson had made breakfast, and we found a spot on the couch in between all of our closest friends. It was super cozy, and I remember cuddling with Mark and looking at everybody and thinking I was absolutely 100% happy.

After conference, I asked Mark if he wanted to get Panda Express, because that's what I always do between Saturday general conference sessions. I go to Panda Express, and I get the chow mein and orange chicken. General Conference is just not the same without Panda Express. Mark was totally down (#soulmates #cuethegag).

We got our Panda Express to go and drove up to Provo Canyon. We ate it in the car overlooking the valley and we talked and then it started to sprinkle. I was slightly devastated, because we had been planning this for so long. And then magically, it began to clear up again.

We got all our gear out of the back of the car and we began the trek towards the climbs we wanted to do.

Thrilled that the weather had decided to stop raining!
Yay for climbing! Yay for adventures!

We got there with plenty of time to spare, so we got to have some more great conversation before the second session of General Conference started as we set up all the ropes. I'm a super nostalgic person, so of course we talked about that first date. That first date had been a super pivotal afternoon for the both of us; that afternoon we'd both realized that we had some sort of connection, that this could be something special.

Then conference started, and we climbed, and every time I made it to the top of the rock wall, it was as exhilarating as that very first time. Back on our first date, I don't know how I made it to the top of the rock wall. It was sheer grit and determination because the rock wall was much harder than I expected, I'd never climbed outside before, and I didn't have a clue what I was doing. That, and I would have been so embarrassed if I couldn't make it to the top while Mark was watching. Turns out pride can do a lot of things, including hauling you to the top of a rock wall that thinks you have no business climbing it.

Rock climbing. 

General Conference drew to a close, and we started packing up. We hugged a bit and kissed a bit and agreed that it had been the best day ever and that we should most definitely continue this tradition.

Then Mark asked if I wanted to go geocaching. I'd wanted to try geocaching for the longest time, but every time we'd wanted to do it earlier, it'd been too cold (I'm kind of a wimp). But now, of course I wanted to go. So he found a geocache location somewhere in Provo Canyon, and off we went on our second adventure.

We walked through a couple of trails before we ditched them and followed a beautiful riverbed for a while. We walked past and around multiple cliffs, and finally, Mark said we were getting close. We walked up a narrow trail to a beautiful clearing, and he said that it was within fifty feet of our location. So we split up to look for the geocache.

I wasn't sure what to look for, but I figured I'd recognize it when I saw it.

Then I saw a striking green bottle laying against a rock in the grass. I picked it up, and told Mark I'd found something. It had a note inside and piece of twine hanging outside the bottle to pull the note out. I thought it was beautiful.

The green bottle in the clearing.

The green bottle up close.

I asked Mark if we should read the note. I was honestly dying of curiosity, but I was worried that it wasn't the geocache, and that it belonged to or was meant for somebody else.

Mark told me (tongue-in-cheek) that we should read it anyways.

I couldn't resist, so I pulled out the note with the piece of twine. The first two words I saw were "My love," and I thought, "Crap! I did just ruin somebody's hard work," and then I realized that the handwriting was familiar and I kept reading and it was only then that I realized that it all was meant for me from the very beginning.

I turned around to face Mark, and he was down on one knee. I couldn't say anything, and he looked at me with those eyes and asked me to spend the rest of eternity with him.

I had barely realized the note had been all for me and turned around, when I saw Mark on one knee.

The entire time, I had never suspected. When I saw him there, as soon as I realized what was happening, I was tremendously shocked and surprised and happy. It was the most momentous moment of my life, and I could barely speak.

I said yes. Of course, I said yes. It was all I ever wanted, and it was all the rapidly firing neurons in my brain let me say, but I said it with my whole heart, and I don't know if I've ever meant something so much in my life.

I couldn't believe it was actually real life happening. So so unbelievably happy. 

Let's be real, kisses happened.

Happiest I've ever been with a man better than my dreams ever were. 

I didn't realize this until it was pointed out to me, but this beautiful clearing was directly underneath the cave where we'd had that fateful conversation on our first date. Mark directed my gaze towards it and told me he'd put drinks up there earlier so we could celebrate.

So we climbed up to the cave, and sat on the rocks with our feet hanging off the edge and drank the most delicious carbonated grape juice. We held hands and celebrated and made toasts and I giggled and neither of us could stop smiling.

The little cave.

Officially engaged.
Coming atcha October 3rd, 2014

It's been said a thousand times before, but I couldn't be more in love with this man. I love his tenderness, his chivalry, and his thoughtfulness. I love the way we communicate and the way we handle our problems. I love how he understands my streak of independence, but how he takes care of me anyways. I love his nerdiness, and the way he loves my silliness. I love that he's strong in areas where I'm weak and vice versa. I love that we have the same dreams and passions and how when we look at the future, we feel like we can take on the world as long as we're together. I love all of these things and so many more, and I can't wait to spend the rest of forever with Mark Austin Stout.

April 5th, 2014 was such a happy day.

Also, this ring.
Can we just talk about how I still can't take my eyes off it? #ridiculouslyobsessed

*Mark arranged for Rachel, his sister and a wonderful photographer, to hide out during the proposal. She's the one who took all the fabulous proposal photos. Couldn't be more thrilled that she was there to capture the moment for us.

Go to part 5: the unfortunate languishing in a tower part

rising

 In fact a mature person does not fall in love, he rises in love. The word ’fall’ is not right. Only immature people fall; they stumble and fall down in love. Somehow they were managing and standing. They cannot manage and they cannot stand – they find a woman and they are gone, they find a man and they are gone. They were always ready to fall on the ground and to creep. They don’t have the backbone, the spine; they don’t have that integrity to stand alone. 

A mature person has the integrity to be alone. And when a mature person gives love, he gives without any strings attached to it: he simply gives. And when a mature person gives love, he feels grateful that you have accepted his love, not vice versa. He does not expect you to be thankful for it – no, not at all, he does not even need your thanks. He thanks you for accepting his love. And when two mature persons are in love, one of the greatest paradoxes of life happens, one of the most beautiful phenomena: they are together and yet tremendously alone; they are together so much so that they are almost one. But their oneness does not destroy their individuality, in fact, it enhances it: they become more individual. 

Two mature persons in love help each other to become more free. There is no politics involved, no diplomacy, no effort to dominate. How can you dominate the person you love? Just think over it. Domination is a sort of hatred, anger, enmity. How can you think of dominating a person you love? You would love to see the person totally free, independent; you will give him more individuality. That’s why I call it the greatest paradox: they are together so much so that they are almost one, but still in that oneness they are individuals. Their individualities are not effaced – they have become more enhanced. The other has enriched them as far as their freedom is concerned. 

Immature people falling in love destroy each other’s freedom, create a bondage, make a prison. Mature persons in love help each other to be free; they help each other to destroy all sorts of bondages. And when love flows with freedom there is beauty. When love flows with dependence there is ugliness. -Osho

I love this. I love this so much. I used to be afraid that a committed relationship was directly correlated to the loss of one's individuality & independence & quirkiness. It's not true.

I'm the most committed I've ever been in my life and

I've never felt so free. 

I've never felt so good. 

My life is still as brilliantly vibrant as it was before I ever knew what love really meant. It is still as intense, adventurous, and unexpected. It is everything I ever hoped for, and the future is every bit as exciting as I ever imagined it. 

It's all those things, but with someone to hold my hand. 

Darling, thank you for taking my hand, and my heart along with it. 

part 3: in which we defeat the monsters

It was rather
beautiful: the way he
put her insecurities to
sleep.
The way he dove into
her eyes and starved
all the fears
and tasted all the
dreams she kept
coiled beneath her
bones.
-Christopher Poindexter

For a short period of time, I was so very afraid of losing Mark.

I had been so very careful to not fall in love before. I had never felt the fear of losing someone before, because before, it had never mattered. Now, all of a sudden, I had discovered that it could matter very much indeed.

The next month or so was probably the hardest one of our relationship. I couldn't stop thinking about everything he would have to give up for this relationship to work. There were really only two options at this point. He would have to be willing to turn down numerous wonderful career opportunities in return for the not-so-attractive option of starting all over in a place not particularly advantageous for any ambitious food scientist. Either that, or we would have to eventually break up.

And because I was so afraid that he would choose the latter option, I began to withdraw a bit. It didn't make sense, not when we were both in love with each other. But I guess I thought I needed to steel myself for the possibility of it ending, prepare myself to take it with grace. I was covering up the rawness with guarded affection, replacing vulnerability with slight aloofness.

Relationships can't work that way. You can't move forward while preparing to move backwards at the same time. I'm not stupid. I knew that. But I was pushing Mark away when the last thing I wanted was for him to leave, and I didn't really know how to stop.

He could have left. He didn't.

Instead, he stayed, and he told me over and over why he stayed. Why he wanted to keep staying.

He did it until I believed him and the clouded glass cracked and he saw everything.

And even when he saw everything, he stayed. Every fear, he allayed. Every insecurity, he kissed. He took everything I was and am and made me feel beautiful because of it.

That's why I stay. That's why I know I want to stay for the rest of my life. 

Go to part 4: the question that started forever

part 2: when love sits just across the table

I wasn't looking for anything serious when I started dating Mark. I knew that I was going to be leaving Utah at the end of year, and that Mark wouldn't be. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew it didn't really make sense to get into a relationship.

But it was so easy to talk to Mark and we always laughed so hard when we were together. I was incredibly drawn to who he was and so when we kind of just fell together naturally, I couldn't bring myself to do anything other than just live in the moment and forget about the future for a while.

Two weeks into our relationship, I was planning on going to Yellowstone with a bunch of friends. I debated on whether or not to invite Mark, because a weekend trip seemed a bit intense. I decided to invite him anyways. Spontaneous adventures are a huge part of my life, and I figured he might as well get introduced to that as soon as possible. He said he would come! He came, and the adventure was 100x more fun with him around. When we cuddled in the car as we drove from place to place in the park, I thought, "I could do this for a long, long time."

Yellowstone National Park

Mark has always liked surprising me, and he has always taken me on incredible dates. Whether to art museums, live music shows, ice palaces, the hot springs, frozen waterfalls, or Antelope Island, I am always shocked by the amount of thought that goes into them. He finds all the best food places around, and most of my favorite restaurants in Utah are places he's taken me. The German delicatessen and Bruges Waffles in Salt Lake City! That one pho restaurant in downtown Provo. Tacos 180, where I would be perfectly happy eating lunch for the rest of my life. The Lebanese restaurant with the best chawarma. The Mexican place where we had those amazing papusas. And so many others.

And all the simple things too. It was studying together in the library, and sneaking kisses in the product development lab between homework problems. It was me having a difficult and long day on campus, and Mark surprising me with Thai take-out for dinner. It was all the other countless times he brought me food on campus when I thought I was too busy to eat. It was doing Taco Tuesday every Tuesday night at Del Taco (don't ask me why I'm so obsessed--ask Mark) and running to In-and-Out at midnight. It was all the good night texts and the best hugs in the world. It was me realizing that my hand felt empty when he wasn't there to hold it. It was him hugging me till I didn't need it anymore that one night when I was upset, even though he was incredibly busy but too kind to tell me he had a billion other things to do. I didn't find out about that until the next day when I asked him about it.

It was him always supporting my dreams and helping me pursue my goals. How he embraced all my idiosyncrasies. It was his open-mindedness and his love for others. The way he just fit in with all my closest friends. The way he talked about his family. The way kids just seem to adore him. The fact that his family is amazing and instantly made me feel like I belonged. His adventurous spirit, his passion for life, his gentleness, his patience. How he could kiss me and make everything else disappear for a while. The way seeing him could instantly make a bad day better.

I'm not sure what I"m doing, but this was such a fun night in
SLC with Chelsey and Trevor.

Then all of a sudden it was November. I was so sick of school, and Thanksgiving break was coming up, and I was feeling restless. We were studying in the library, and I turned to him, and I said, "Babe, would you want to go to Arches with me? Let's go camping!"

He didn't even skip a beat, "Of course."

So we went camping in November among patches of snow. It was wicked cold, but it was so fun. Something about shivering and cooking hotdogs via lighter fluid because the wood is wet is a real bonding experience. We went hiking all day and I had never been happier.

One of the trails had a really steep dropoff and the entire trail was solid, slippery rock steeply slanted towards the drop-off. It was a dangerous trail, but we needed to get past it to get back. There was a huge bottleneck, because a bunch of other people were having the same problem. Mark got me down the trail safely, and then he went back to help everybody else, because honestly, that part of the trail was terrifying. Guys, grandmas, little kids, everybody. There's no way everybody could have made it down safely without him. We were probably there for around an hour.

One of the first groups of people Mark helped was this guy's wife and little girl. They watched everybody else trying to come down the trail for a while, and the man was like, "Wow, if your boyfriend is going to help everybody, you're going to be here for a while." We chatted for a while and then they left. About a half hour later, I saw the guy come running back, and he said, "Here. Take your man out for a nice meal afterward. He deserves it." He pressed something in my hand and ran back in the other direction. It was $40.

Mark did finish helping everybody down eventually, and we made our way back to our campsite. We did go have a splendid meal later with the $40, but I was more just in love with the way that it was so natural for Mark to stay and help until everybody had been taken care of, regardless of the fact that it was time-consuming and inconvenient. That's just who he is, and I love that about him.

Arches National Park

Amidst of all of this I was applying for grad school. I talked to a professor from NC State on the phone and he said, "Well, how about I just fly you out here? I'll show you what we have to offer myself." So he flew me out to North Carolina in the beginning of December.

I went from subzero temperatures in Utah to 65 degrees in North Carolina. Dr. Klaenhammer picked me up from the airport that evening and I instantly liked him. He showed me around the city a bit before dropping me off at my hotel and letting me know that he was having some grad students pick me up for dinner.

I went to dinner with two grad students who worked with Dr. Klaenhammer in downtown Raleigh, and we had a great time. I learned a ton about the program from a student's perspective which I loved. The next day I talked to a ton of faculty in the NC State Food Science Program. And everything about it just felt right, and I knew that that was where I was supposed to go to grad school. I had been so so stressed about it all semester long, but that weekend in Raleigh just settled everything for me. I just felt so good about it.

It wasn't until the airplane ride home that I didn't know what to do. I had been upgraded to first class, so I sat in this big chair in the dark in the front of the plane and sipped grape juice and tried to decide where Mark fit into all of this. And I didn't know.

But when I walked out into the airport that night, I saw him and I jumped into his arms and he gave me the most massive hug. He whisked me away to The Bayou, a jazz bar with incredible Southern fare in Salt Lake City. We sat at a table close to the band and it was amazing. We both love jazz, and The Bayou has the coolest atmosphere. I ordered gumbo. He ordered pasta. We talked, and I gushed about NC State, and we both kind of avoided the elephant in the room for a while.

And then he said, "I don't know if this is the best time to discuss this, but what does this mean for us?"

I said, "I don't know." My mind was rushing with a thousand different things, but I didn't know how to put any of it into words.

And then he said, "I love you."

And I still didn't have an answer for what was going to happen or how we were going to make it work, but all of a sudden I knew and I had words for what I wanted to say.

And somehow I was brave enough to tell him I loved him too.

He said, "I love you, and I want to try to make this work, even if you end up going to NC State."

"Me too."  And I meant it from the bottom of my heart.

Being in love is a wonderful, exhilarating, terrifying feeling. Love has a way of spilling into your life like water into the cracks of the pavement, making its way into crevices you didn't know existed. 

It came uninvited and unexpected, but it somehow managed to be the biggest feeling in the world. 

Go to part 3: in which we defeat the monsters

part 1: the beginning of the story

I first met Mark in the food science study room of the Eyring Science Center. It was sometime in April of last year. I thought he was charming and witty and handsome. I thought "Whoa, he's into jazz and rock climbing and science and adventures?" I thought, "I could date that guy."

And then I went to Malawi for the summer.

I came back to school in August and on the very first day of our Food Processing and Commodities class, I saw him again and recognized him instantly.

We said hi. It was cute.

The class had a five hour field trip every week, and we had a number of vans that would transport us to and from BYU and whatever food processing facility we were assigned to that week. Dr. Jefferies was going to assign one van as the "early van." This particular van was for those who had class right after the field trip. I was signed up for a class at four so I raised my hand when Dr. Jefferies asked who needed to be back on campus early as she was assigning vans.

Mark raised his hand too.

I was secretly kind of thrilled. He told me later that he'd raised his hand after he'd seen me raise my hand so that we'd get assigned to the same van for the field trips. WIN. 

We started talking on these super long field trips. We went to get Slab Pizza a couple times. This one time, Mark convinced me to dress up like a pirate and go to Krispy Kreme with him and a few other people for national talk like a pirate day. We each got a dozen free doughnuts. I got a haircut once and he told me I looked really good. Sometimes, we'd study together after class.

One day, after one of our field trips, we were walking out of the Eyring, and he said, "Say...wanna go rock climbing with me sometime?"

We went rock climbing over general conference weekend in Provo Canyon. Saturday afternoon session. We listened to conference over the radio, and it was the best conference session of my life. On the way back, we decided to explore a cave we'd seen on the way up to the wall. Inside that cave, we had the most amazing conversation, and I'm pretty sure I was thinking something along the lines of "This guy is an incredible human being." We had so many of the perspectives on life, the same curiosity about the world, the same drive to excel, the same desire to experience everything life had to offer. The same fascination with science, the same love and appreciation for history, culture, and the arts. I'd never met anybody like him.

Then Mark looked at his watch, and realized he was going to be late for priesthood session, so he dropped me off. I walked into my apartment and talked about him to all my roommates and realized that (OH MY GOSH) I might actually kind of like like him.

We went rock climbing for our second date--this time in American Fork Canyon. After we'd finished climbing, Mark asked if I wanted to go stargazing on top of the rock wall. It was kind of chilly, but he said he had a blanket and I wasn't ready for the night to be over and he was looking at me with this slightly crooked smile and

Of course I said yes.

Of course we held hands and cuddled.

The next weekend, we walked to downtown Provo because I wanted to see some art exhibit. We never found it. But he did kiss me. 

Totally worth it.

Go to Part 2: when love sits just across the table

graduation

I graduated from BYU in April with a bachelor's degree in food science, and minors in Spanish, chemistry, and international development. It's hard to believe that after five years, my undergrad is finally over! I'm proud of it though. Really proud. I worked hard for that degree.

It was five of the best years of my life, and it sounds terrible, but I'm already kind of sad that I won't be making the journey back to Utah in the fall. Provo is a special place.





I'm excited for what lies ahead as well though! After this internship with General Mills is over, I'm going to be starting graduate school in the fall with North Carolina State. There's a pretty large network of NC State grads here at Gen Mills, and they've all had really good things to say about the program. Yay for more school!