Happy Valentine's Day Kim

I just want to let my wife know I love her, and thought I'd reflect on our wonderful time together.

We first met during our freshman year at BYU. We were in the same ward. I was living in V-Hall at Deseret Towers (which is no longer there) and she was living in Snow Hall in Heritage Halls. I being an oblivious male, was too wrapped up in my own endeavors to worry about the opposite gender had to be nudged a little. One Sunday evening, while waiting for Ward Prayer to begin, I felt a tap on my shoulder. As I turned I heard in a southern accent, "My roommate thinks you're cute." And she was gone. As I watched her return to her friends, I saw Kim and thought "Hey, I should get to know her." It wasn't until after we were married that I mentioned that evening to Kim, and she didn't even know her roommate had done that. If she would have known, she would have been too embarrassed to talk to me. I'm glad she wasn't. Anyways, soon we began hanging out together.

Our first date came during the Christmas season. Santa had shown up at Deseret Towers, and I invited her to join me in visiting him. We sat on his lap and had our picture taken. Afterwards we headed to the cafeteria for some ice cream. Oh the life of freshman living on campus.

We spent a lot of time together the rest of the school year, but no formal relationship was developed. I left a month after school was out for my mission, and we kept in touch through letters. On one occasion I sent a postcard from Slovenia, and upon seeing it, Kim's mom asked who this boy was. "Oh, just a boy." Was the reply. "Any potential?" came the next question. "No, he was just a friend." And that was the truth at the time.

After two years of serving in the great land of Slovenia, I returned home and found myself at BYU again. I was slowing getting back into the school thing. One Tuesday morning I was looking for a place on campus to watch the weekly devotional and thought the JSB would be a good bet since it had a large auditorium. To my surprise the room was full. I remembered that before my mission I would meet my sister in the Benson Building to watch, and since it was next door, I thought I would try it. As I was leaving the JSB, I saw this hot girl walking in. Hey, I knew her. It was Kim. I mentioned to her that it was full and asked if she wanted to join me next door. Needless to say, each week after that we just happen to run into each other there for devotional.

While we were starting to renew our friendship, Kim inviting me to join a bunch of people going to the movies. We went and saw The Replacements. I enjoyed the movie seeing as it was about football, and I found out how much Kim remembered the movie, when some time later when we were looking for a movie to rent and we came across The replacements, she had asked me if I had ever seem it. We know what she was paying attention to the whole time.

Then came our second first date. This is what began the lovely trip down love lane. I had been given tickets to Frightmares at Lagoon from my sister and they had to be used up or else they would go to waste. I thought I’d invite Kim. Let me just say, taking a girl to haunted houses for a date is a must for any guy. Even though Kim isn't one to be scared very easily, it seemed that quite a few things scared her that day. From there, the rest of the dating scene was history.

That next summer while I was home in Reno working, and she was working out in Pennsylvania, I thought I'd take a trip out to see her for the 4th of July. It was fun to go to a small town 4th of July celebration. But when it was all over, Kim's dad decided it would be fun to go to the Hill Cumorah pageant. It was a great experience, but since it was kind of a spur of the moment trip, we didn't have a place to stay that evening. Well, we found a motel on the way home to stay in, but we only got one room. Let me just say I was hugging the edge of the bed as I shared one of the beds with Kim's Dad.

After that trip I knew Kim was the one for me and decided to buy a ring. With the help from her friend Kodi, I picked out the ring and got a plan together to propose.

Just before school was to start in the fall Kim was going to fly out to Reno after making the drive from PA to drive with me back to Utah. I set it up to take her to Lake Tahoe one of those days she was to visit. We went with my sister and her friend. It was set up that as a signal I would take Kim out on a raft onto the lake that my sister was to go set up an area pre-arranged. On the table was a bottle of sparkling cider, two glasses, two candles, and a piece of wood I had burned on one side, "KB (heart) PM", and on the other side "Will you marry me." This actually came about because over the summer I had gotten back into the hobby of wood burning, and Kim jokingly asked if I would burn one with our initials in it.

Well, after a few minutes out on the raft, I rowed us back to shore and asked Kim if she wanted to go look for a tree I had planted there in the sixth grade. As we started walking around, we came across this scene, and thought we'd check it out. Kim thought it was sweet that I had set this up, but had no clue what really was going on. She saw the wood burn with our initials on it and thought it was fun, then put it down, not flipping it over. Man was I nervous. How was I going to get her to flip it over without being to obvious? I picked the board back up and showed my signature mark I was putting on all my burns. As she was looking at it, she FINALLY noticed something on the back and flipped it over. She just went silent as I got down on my knee and very shakily said, "It took me eight cracker jack boxes to find it. It is a symbol of my undying affliction for you." She then with tears in her eyes, asked, "Is this for real?" I then officially asked, "Kimberly Boyack, Will you marry me?" And I got a wonderful "Yes".

And that is how it all began. I am lucky that Kim decided to be with me, and there is no one else in the entire world I would want to spend the rest of eternity with.

I'll love you forever; I'll like for always, as long as eternity my baby you'll be.

(I don't have any pictures right now, but I'll post a few of out courtship soon.)