The Book of Love...Literally. A Book

I frequently get people who ask me how David and I met and want the full on love story. So, I think it will be much easier on myself if i just post it here, and then can direct those curious to my blog. It will save so much time and effort. And i fully apologize in advance, if somethings are hard to understand. I get flustered trying to explain the story because there is so much involved, i can't decipher what all i want to share.

David and I have known each other for about 3 years now. He served as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (see Mormon.org for details) in my ward for about one transfer. We had talked and such since he and his companion were over at our house for P-Days. So, skip to April 2007, David had been off his mission for almost two years and had been living in Vegas for a year and a half and i had been dinking around after been graduated from high school for two years. It was a Sunday night at I was at a CES Fireside, being a busy body, when this guy with long red hair and jeans walked up to me. It took me a second to recognize him, and realize i knew him..."Elder Richards...err David?" (Don't ask me how i remembered his first name)...."Britni Shirley?" So, we swapped the "How are yous?" and "What have you been up to?" business and i got his number and he left. I don't know what made me do it, but on the way home i sent him a text that was something along the lines of "Hey, if you need anything let me know." Who knows, maybe i felt bad for him lol.

We had randomly been texting back and forth for the next month or two, and then June arrived. It was a Friday and I was driving to go to my friend Robert Chatwin's wedding reception in North Las Vegas. And when i got there to my surprise, so was David. I don't know why i was surprised. I knew they knew eachother. Throughout the night, Rob kept telling me i needed to date David, and i was like nooo i can't, and embarrassed that he was suggesting i date someone like i was a little girl or something. I kept my eyes on David the entire time, he is gorgeous after all :)...and he was being silly, i enjoyed laughing at him. Slow song came around, he asked me to dance...my heart was fluttering. I was dancing with a hot guy...

Fast forward to a few weeks later, i get a call from him asking me if i wanted to go see Tiger Army with him. I had no idea what that was, so he told me it was a concert, i told him yes i would love to go, however he need to check to make sure there was no age restriction because i wasn't 21 yet :). I found out later on that apparently he was sweating bullets calling me and practiced everything in his head for like fifteen minutes and when i told him to check for restictions he was nervous even more...awwww cute lol! Everything turned out fine though until the day of the show. I didn't know if it was a date or not and that made me nervous. I didn't know what to expect. I had been on quite a few dates over the past month and they were all sorts of formal: Guy gets me from my house, opens the doors, buys the popcorn, kinda thing...This however was not like that. He bought the tickets and i was meeting him at the House of Blues. I was nervous the entire way there not knowing. I hate that sort of stuff. It makes things awkward. Again, everything turned out fine though. I got to the show, and i LOVED the closeness between he and i. The floor was packed and he had his arms around me to keep nasty sweaty huge guys off me. I loved that feeling that he was protecting me.

Over the upcoming months we dated casually with surprise "Harry Potter Trips" at 3am, Grape Cream Slush runs, In and Out meetings, amazing dates to Fast Lap, movie dates at his place and more. I slowly got to know him and what he was about and loved it all. I didn't know i was in love with him yet though. I was a huge busy body and he used to tease asking me to pencil him into my infamous planner. However, i never felt i needed to make time for him. Anytime he called all my plans seemed to magically disappear for him. It was such a fun summer and i enjoyed his presence. Take note that i didn't ever like just one guy at a time lol i liked to keep my options open, so i had all sorts of "projects" going on. I had liked David, and mysteriously cleared my schedule for him over other guys, but also had crushes on a few others as well.

Once the end of summer rolled around though we didn't see much of eachother. We would still text, but not physically see eachother. I was busy with school and had started playing with new found friends whom i absolutely adored and he must have been busy as well since he hadn't called. September came and went and we started into October. October 13th, the day of the UNLV vs. BYU football game. I had never been to a college football game so i went with my friend Logan and enjoyed myself hanging out and visiting with friends and watching the game. After the game following everone out i saw the back of David's head and recognized him at once, and jumped on his back! I was SO excited to see him! He realized it was me and i hoped down and we began visiting. I found out he didn't have a ride home, so i Logan said it would be no problem if we dropped him off out in Timbuktu. This is the day that we consider our friendship turning into a relationship. Nothing dramatic happened, and yet it did. We had never had any sort of physical contact with eachother apart from our first date at the Tiger Army show. As we walked to the car, we were all sorts of flirty. I would walk in front of him, then hit the breaks and he would wrap his arms around me briefly, then release and we repeated the whole way to the car while catching up. Once we reached the car, i got in the front and he in the back and i dont know how it happened, but our hands were playing. We weren't talking, Logan was preoccupied on the phone, and our hands were slowly playing with eachother. Some times briefly holding hands then releasing to play some more. My heart was more fluttery than usual and i didn't know why. It's not like i had never held hands before. When we got to his house I left Logan and went in with David. We cuddled and watched TV til he took me home. It is all practically history from there. We saw eachother everyday from there on out. Three or four weeks after that we had our first kiss. I kissed THE most grizzly man in the world because he was in a beard growing contest and hadn't shaved in two months and it was amazing lol. Alright, more story to come...