November 7th, 2008 – Eric first saw Jentry Ann Taylor at a bonfire in Mesa, AZ escorted by Barry Brown… Eric thought Jen and Barry were dating, and just thought Jen was hot. A couple hours later, they rendezvoused at Barry’s house and watched The Office, and Eric quickly learned that Barry and Jen were 1st cousins.
December 2008 – After talking himself out of it several times, Eric finally took Jen on a date… It was an incredibly awkward night. Went to PF Changs, and luckily Eric knew the waiter so there was a little conversation over dinner. (Unfortunately, most of the conversations were between Eric and the waiter, not Eric and Jen). Then they went to the mall and picked a couple Christmas angels off the tree, and had fun giving a few kids a tight Christmas. Total words exchanged in those 3-4 hours = probably in the low hundreds.
NOTE: Post-date, Eric told his mother and sister, Angie, that the date was way awkward, BUT that it was surprisingly awesome for some reason and could see himself taking her out again… This marked the beginning for Eric. (Not Jen)
January 2009 - March 2009 – Barry Brown (Jen’s 1st cousin) & Cole Taylor (Jen’s older brother) move into Eric’s house in Mesa, AZ. Jen hangs out a lot at the HBH (aka Heartbreak Hotel, aka the name of Eric’s house), and Eric is secretly and slowly getting PHASED by Jen! At this point, Barry is the only one that knows of Eric’s little crush, and frequently tells Eric to like someone else.
March 2009 – Eric knows he is about to leave for 3-5 months for a summer sales job, and got enough guts to ask Jen out again. Ate at California Pizza Kitchen, and actually had real conversations… Then found their way onto a roof-top of a beautiful home in North-East Mesa and just hung out, overlooking the whole East valley. Played a couple get-to-know-you games and laughed for hours. Eric wanted to kiss Jen so bad that night - - BUT wussed out after realizing that he’d be gone the next several months and didn’t want to ruin future chances just for some quick action. (P.S. Eric knew, after this night, that he would love to marry Jen… but wasn’t vocal to anybody about it) (P.S.S. Jen was still not into Eric, haha) After the date, Eric told his mom and Angie, word for word, "that was the best date I've ever been on."
April 16th, 2009 – October 26th, 2009 – Eric took off to do sales for 6 months… Definitely thought it would only be 3-4 months. After two months of no talking/texting/chatting, Eric and Jen randomly started texting each other in June… From June to October, they texted almost daily, and frequently were up til 3 AM (sometimes 5 AM) just… talking. (Big props to T-mobile, Verizon, and Facebook for being there all summer long). Here are some (slash a lot) of excerpts from the textual relationship over the summer…
(These are in chronological order, but several thousand are cut and/or condensed... click on them to enlarge)
If you read between the lines, you will notice that both Eric and Jen KNEW they liked each other, but, at the same time, did not.
October 26th, 2009 - Eric arrives in AZ! Walks in the door to his house, and the first person he sees is Jen (ironic).
Side Note: She was flaming hot that day.
Anyway...
October 26th, 2009 - November 7th, 2009 - Eric and Jen saw each other every single day... sometimes for a few moments, but they never missed a day. Most nights ended with a movie... and somehow they were both laying on the carpet, side-by-side, without touching... both thinking, "when the heck will he/she make a move?!?!"... Of course, it should be Eric's job... but we all know, he moves a little slow. (Note: the last girl he seriously dated... umm, it took him 9 months to kiss her...) It had barely been 9 days?...
November 8th, 2009 - Eric and Jen went to a typical Sunday Night game night thing at the Robinson's home... did things like listen to Eric's rap that he recorded over the summer, played cards, AND, as fate would have it, played MASH. The below picture shows the results (on the actual, original paper) of Eric's future... So awesome! (Oh, where was this paper found, you ask? Saved and preserved nicely in a drawer in Eric's bathroom...)
Apparently, Eric's future consists of living in an apartment in New York, marrying Jentry Ann Taylor (who works at UPS), having 7 kids, driving a Chevy car, working in Real Estate, and owning a pet turtle. (Doesn't get much better! Unless the turtle dies...)
After game night, the two flirty friends went to Eric's house to watch the movie, Radio. While watching the flick, they held hands for the first time, and after it was over... they had their first kiss. I'm telling you... MASH is legit.
November 9th, 2009 - Eric made huge mistake #1 on the 9th. Jen came over to help Eric paint all night long... and right before she went home, gave her a solid high-five goodbye. Jen was ticked, and told her mom. (and yes, it was the night after their first kiss... no need to scroll up and check)
November 9th, 2009 - November 17th, 2009 - The two started falling in "love"... it is only in quotes because they would not verbally say it... but looking back, it was happening.
November 18th, 2009 - The DTR went down. DTR = Determine the Relationship. AKA the essential conversation that either ends awkward or awesome. It ended awesome, and they became official. (Although, Eric avoided talking to Cole, Jen's brother, about the official-ness for several days... maybe even a week...)
November 22nd, 2009 - Eric makes huge mistake #2. After church, Dinner Groups were at Eric's house... there were 4-5 members from the ward eating over to "get to know each other." Anyway... Jen came over to bring the salad dressing, and right before leaving... Eric threw down another high-five goodbye. Didn't even phase him (that's mistake #3), but again... Jen was ticked, and told her mom.
November 26th, 2009 (Thanksgiving) - Eric almost died. He ate Filibertos at 3 AM, and was on his death bed ALL Thanksgiving Day. Why does this matter? He was almost too sick to go up to see Jen's family in Cottonwood, AZ the following day... And that would have been tragic... (wah wah wah...)
November 27th, 2009 - Eric wakes up, all better. Drives to Cottonwood to hang out with Jen's family for the first time. It was a fun day - - Eric refers to the "Thanksgiving trip to Cottonwood" as the day that sealed the deal. The question was not, "Should I marry Jen?"... It was, "When should I marry Jen?" ... Come to find out, Jen was on the same page.
December 1st, 2009 - Eric woke up early for work and went to an inspection with his friend, Rajiv. After chatting with Rajiv for a few minutes about Jen, they decided to go meet our main man, Clint Dewitt at his jewelry shop "just to see how much rings cost." (no big deal...after all, Eric and Jen had only been dating for...what... 2 weeks?)
That night, like an idiot, Eric slipped and told Jen that he sorta, kinda, might have looked at rings that morning. Her eyes got huge and she was shocked... "Isn't this really fast?," she asked. Awwwkwwwaaarddd! The night ended weird-ish... Jen went home, and Eric verbally abused himself. But there is one thing that Eric did not know; Jen went home that night and showed her cousin, Lexi, what type of ring she wanted and even gave her pictures.
December 5th-ish, 2009 - Eric and Jen started talking about marriage... weird. It was odd how normal it felt. That night, Jen said to ask Lexi about the ring sometime, because she had the pictures and everything.
December 11th, 2009 - Eric met up with Lexi to get the scoop. This is the picture Eric had to work with... Princess cut with diamonds on the sides. Size 3.75.
Eric went over to a friend's jewelry store... looked at 15 rings or so... and bought one 40 minutes later. Now the difficult part - - not letting Jen know.
He continued to make it sound like he would propose in January or February, just to throw Jen off. They even talked about a tentative wedding date... April 2nd, 2010.
December 13th, 2009 - Eric asked Jen for her mother's cell phone number. (feel the suspense?). He needed it to ask what to get Jen for Christmas... well, that's what he told Jen.
December 14th, 2009 - Eric called Jen's awesome mother, Natalie, and dropped the news... He needed to talk to the father, Scott, and ask for Jen's hand. The plans were made for Eric to drive drive to Cottonwood a few hours later and talk to Scott. And the best part: Scott had no idea until Eric knocked on the door, and, of course, Jen had NO idea.
The talk with Scott and Natalie went well... Eric was sweating almost as much as Natalie cried, but not quite. After asking permission to marry Jentry, and hearing her parents say YES, Eric looked up at the tightest future in-laws in the world. He hung out for 20-30 minutes, and then hit the road back to the valley so Jen would not suspect anything. While cruising down the I-17, Eric straight up lied to Jen and said he was going to the gym... all for a good cause.
That same night, Eric and Jen went over to Stephen's house to watch the Cardinal's game... everything was fine and dandy until a small detail surfaced. Apparently, earlier that day, Jen was with an Aunt and got her ring finger sized, and instead of 3.75, she wears a 3.5. Lexi broke the news to Eric via text... No big deal, except the ring was already ordered with the 3.75 size... to be picked up 10 hours later. A quick text to a friend solved it, and delayed the pick-up one day.
December 15th, 2009 - All Eric could think about was the ring and how to propose.... Meanwhile, Jen had no idea. Eric even made MANY statements like, "Jen, I promise I will buy you a ring, but it won't be for Christmas or New Years, and may even be in February," or "If we get engaged in January, when should we get married?" They even talked about April 2nd being the wedding date.
At this point, Eric's room mates, Barry and Cole, Jen's whole family, and Eric's whole family knew what was going on. Proposal, t-minus 1 day.
The best part = Jen obviously had no idea that Eric had already talked to her parents about getting married... SOOO, Eric planned to take Jen with him to Cottonwood the next day (Wednesday, the 16th) to "ask her dad to marry Jen and talk," or whatever... Jen was sold! She noticed how nervous and jumpy Eric was, but thought it was because he was talking to her dad soon. Wrong. He was nervous because in 20 hours he would be on one knee with a ring in his hand!
December 16th, 2009
The day in Eric's eyes
9 AM - Woke up, nervous as all get-out.
9:30 AM - 12 PM - Scoped out areas to "pop the question"
12:30 PM - Picked up the rock, aka the bling, aka Jen's ring.
12:45 PM - While still at ring store, texted Jen to see if it would be OK to make a stop at a "client's home" in Fountain Hills on the way to Cottonwood. "Sure," she said.
1 PM - Showed family the ring
1:30 PM - Picked up flowers for Jen
1:45 PM - Borrowed a black bag/briefcase thing from David to disguise the flowers and ring box.
2:00 PM - Bored. Nothing to do. Seriously... Almost went down to Buckle (where Jen works), and just asked her at the Mall...
2:30 PM -4:30 PM - Took a nap at the 'rents... couldn't stop pacing around the house.
4:35 PM - Got woken up by the mother... supposed to leave for Cottonwood in 25 minutes.
5:15 PM - Picked up Jen to make the trek to Cottonwood... Had to step on it and average 85 MPH to make it to Fountain Hills before sunset to "meet a client and get some paperwork signed"
5:40 PM - Pulled up to a beautiful, 3 Million Dollar home in Fountain Hills... Slyly had Jen stay in the car while taking a big briefcase in the home. (you know, cause that's not suspicious). Set up some flowers, and put the ring box in the back pocket.
5:42 PM - Made a fake phone call in front of Jen - - "...alright Joe, see you in 15 minutes" ... then invited Jen to come inside and take a look at the awesome house.
5:45 PM - While shaking like crazy, showed Jen the home... and ended on the upper balcony overlooking one side of Fountain Hills.
5:47 PM - After two minutes of looking over the balcony and Jen not even noticing the bouquet of flowers in her face... pointed them out and she loved them. She thought it was a nice jesture... 5:48 PM Exchanged hugs/kisses/I Love You's...
5:49 PM - Pressed record on the iPhone.
5:50 PM - As Jen is turned away from the home, Eric says "Are you ready?" and Jen turns around to Eric on his knee with the ring box open. "SHUT UP!! ARE YOU SERIOUS?" says Jen... Eric asks, Will you Marry Me? and laughs while Jen is absolutely shocked. After 15 seconds, she said YES! (Check out the actual recording,
here)
It became official! The two were engaged to be married on March 19th, 2010!
They made the trip to Cottonwood, just to hang out with her parents for a few hours.
After they were engaged, it finally came out that Jen had the same wishes to get married since mid-Summer 2009.
