It's a Love Story?

Dustin and I met in 8th grade drama class. When most people hear this, they automatically assume that we were high school sweethearts, but I'll start out with saying that we were NOT high school sweethearts. In 8th grade one of my best friends had a huge crush on Dustin but I never knew him until they called roll the first day of class and I heard his name. "Oh THAT'S Dustin Creer!" is what I thought. We became friends that year and were friends all through high school. I actually took Dustin on his first date our sophomore year, though I did not know it was his first date. Junior year, Dustin started dating my best friend Laken while I was dating Mike and Mike (not at the same time, just one right after the other.)

After high school, I left for BYU and Dustin left for his mission in Brazil. I wrote him, he wrote me back, and I wrote him back, but never sent it. So we exchanged letters once. 2 years later, Dustin came home to discover that Laken was engaged to another man, and I was recently dumped by high school interest Drew. I moved home for the summer (2007) and this is where our story really starts.

Dustin and I first met up post mission/high school at a mutual friend's mission homecoming. We were at said mutual friend's house after the homecoming for lunch just chatting with friends. Conversation somehow turned to how I had dated two Michaels and two red heads and therefore needed to find a red headed Michael to have "third time's the charm" for both. Dustin piped up, "Well, my middle name is Michael and my dad has red hair." I said, "close enough!" He got my number that day... and then I didn't hear from him for a really long time. Good friend Andrea and Mike decided that we'd get together to hang out and thought Dustin should come too. So Mike gave me Dustin's number and I called to him to invite him to hang out with old high school friends. This outing started a summer with the 4 of us together.

Fighting for my man even before I knew he would be my man.

Somewhere in the middle of the summer, maybe June-ish, I started thinking that Dustin was actually kinda cute. This was weird for me because I had never thought of him that way. It seemed like he might be a little interested as well... one night Andrea and Mike couldn't hang with us so we decided we should hang by ourselves. We went to a park and just talked and talked and talked. Then when the park was closed, we went to an abandoned baseball diamond turned corn field and looked at the stars while talking and talking and talking some more. It was really great. A week or so later, while making up stories looking at stars, we held hands... And not everyone in his family was happy about this. Dustin's sister Nicole, his "twin" couldn't see us together and wasn't very happy with our budding relationship. Needless to say, this put a slight damper on how Dustin was feeling and was very conflicting to him. He's really really close with his family which is a super great thing, but in the beginning, it made our relationship hard.

Dustin's crazy/awesome family.

A few weeks after our first holding hands, we kissed. After watching Eragon. So romantic. We continued to hang out. Then the midnight showing for Harry Potter came out. And that was the night that Dustin said he didn't think we should continue dating, or whatever it was we were doing (we hadn't actually gone on dates). I was fine with this as I was counting this as the annual summer fling that would end at the end of summer, so this was just a little sooner. We agreed that we should still be friends and continue to hang out.

After this, Dustin started asking me to come to even more things. Our "not dating" last for a week... til it was the night of Harry Potter 7 coming out. (don't know why Harry Potter influenced our relationship so much). We went to a star show at the BYU planetarium, then got ice cream at the Creamery, then went to a park to talk... and snuggle... and then he kissed me. I said to Dustin, "I thought we weren't doing that!" And he said, "Well maybe we can." We decided that we should actually date (by going on actual dates!), but not date exclusively. I was down with that because I had lots of fun with him!

A few weeks later, we took a trip with Andrea and Lacie (Mike was supposed to come too but bailed) to California. It was amazing. Dustin fell hard on this trip and my feelings for him grew immensely as well.

Dodger's game in California.

Then school started. And though we said that we would still not be exclusive, we were. We spent all our free time together, spent every weekend together. And our relationship grew. I decided that I was sick of telling all my other friends that I loved them (I said that to everyone), but not telling Dustin. So after a Def Leppard concert with his family, I told him that I loved him. He didn't say it back that night. I was concerned that I had ruined us. I had never told a boy that I loved him before, and I was the first one to say it. So I was nervous. It wasn't until October, a whole month later, that he said that he loved me. It was the best night of my life.

BYU Homecoming Dance

October was kinda a big month for us... I asked Dustin to go to the BYU Homecoming dance with me on the Heber Creeper. It was such a great night. Homecoming week we also went on a late night walk around BYU campus and talked for the first time about marriage. Now when Drew dumped me at the beginning of the year, I received a father's blessing that gave me a lot of comfort. In it, I was given the promise that I would KNOW with assurance who I should marry. In mid October, Dustin and I took a trip to the temple and while I was waiting for Dustin to finish, I felt that I could marry this man. I knew that he was a man I would be very happy with.

The only problem was.... every time we started getting serious, Dustin would not be sure. We'd have 3 really really good weeks, then one really bad week, then 3 really really really good weeks, then one really really bad week. It was so frustrating. Many of the confusions came from Dustin's previous relationship that he had not fully processed. Also, as mentioned before, Dustin's family was not completely on board with him being in a serious relationship. He had only dated on girl in high school, and then me after the mission. They felt he needed more experience to really find what he wanted.

November Thanksgiving time was fantastic. Things were looking so great and we were talking a little about marriage. Then the week after was the really really bad week. And the first hard breakup. Dustin needed some time to back off and figure out what he was doing. My family had bought him a ticket to the Holiday Dinner in December and I didn't want them to know until after the event because I still wanted him to go with me. In fact, even though we "broke up", we were still together a lot of the time. Dustin's family took a trip for a cruise to Mexico and came back Christmas Eve. On Christmas day, Dustin had me come to his house to give me my Christmas present. And it was a ring... and opal ring from Mexico. It was beautiful! I didn't know why in the world he would get me a ring when we were "broken up".

By January, we were officially back together and in love. This lasted until the day before Valentine's Day when we had another big fall. It was bad. Bad. Bad. Bad. Worst Valentine's day of all time. I won't go into detail though, but my friends were very upset and I was very upset.

In March I found a job ad for a nanny position in California. It seemed to pay well, have good benefits, and nothing was keeping me in Utah after graduation. Dustin seemed to be okay with this too. In April, he drove me to my interview in Salt Lake for the position and afterward, even though they hadn't offered me the position, I knew I was going to get it and Dustin knew I was going to get it, and we cried together. Even though we weren't "together", we missed each other. And I hadn't even left yet.

BYU Graduation.

Graduation came in April and I left the week after I left for California. The night before I left, we spent it crying together. Well, Dustin cried a lot more than I did. It was kinda frustrating because in all of this, Dustin was the one to cool things down and here he was, bawling his face off because I was leaving. (hopefully he doesn't hate me for writing that!) We both knew that this was the right thing and that time physically away from each other was the only way for him to figure out what he wanted and what he was going to do.

California was hard. The job was not what I expected at all. It was horrible. My only saving grace was Jon. Dustin and I continued to stay in touch and talked every night. Then we decided he really needed to do something to make up his mind about what he wanted. We took two weeks off without talking to each other at all. I'm pretty sure I went on more dates during those two weeks than he did, but it was still good. After the two weeks, I came home to Utah for my brother's homecoming and we spent lots of time together. At this point, I realized that I was done with California and needed to quit. Dustin agreed that he would do anything to get me out of that hell-hole. He flew out to Santa Barbara and we spent a great day at Six Flags, stopped in Vegas, and made it back in time for Pioneer day celebration. We were dating again and more serious than ever. A lot more talk of marriage was going on.....

Visiting the beach in Santa Barbara when Dustin flew in to drive back with me.

Then August things started getting tough. Everyone was waiting for him to ask me to marry him.... my dad was ready to pull him aside and ask him what his intentions with me were. It was so stressful. And I know he was feeling the pressure. So I took him aside myself and and asked him what his intentions were. He still wasn't ready, still didn't know. Remember how the OCTOBER before (almost a year before!) I KNEW that I wanted to marry this man?! Um, talk about patience! I think I actually had this inspiration so it would hold me through this entire relationship with all the ups and downs and "breakups". August was the final straw though. I told him that this was the final breakup because I couldn't keep doing this.

The next week was hard. I couldn't believe that everything I thought I knew was somehow not true. Dustin was having a hard time too. We took a walk and he told me how hard it had been for him. I wasn't going to cave though. I moved out to Pleasant Grove in September and dated casually. Dustin tried dating, but nothing really was working out. We stayed in touch, but I wouldn't say we were dating unless there was a ring on my finger.

In October, we started getting serious, but I wasn't going to say it was anything. We had had way too many really good and then really bad weeks for me to get my hopes up at all. Beginning of November, we were having a really good week, and then it hit again, the really bad week. This time I wasn't going to let it end like that. We talked. And talked. And Dustin realized that even though I am an emotional girl, very unlike the women in his family, he was doing everything that I needed him to do, when was feeling like he was inadequate. He was actually perfect. And it was talking about our communication that got us over this hurdle. From there on out, he decided that we would be great together and that he would be very happy with me. We started talking marriage and looking at rings, but didn't tell either of our families. (remember, i wasn't 'dating' him until there was a ring on my finger!)

Thanksgiving break we found the perfect ring. He bought it (without me knowing for sure). On his birthday (December 10th), his mom asked him what these Zales letters in the mail addressed to him were for... so he showed her. And she cried. Happy tears of course. He told me about this and said that she said, "I hope I will be a good mother in law!" How adorable. I love his family. So by this point I knew he had the ring. So I was waiting for it... and waiting... and it wasn't coming yet. So I gave him the ultimatum. He had to propose by Christmas but not ON Christmas because that is so cliche. And if he didn't propose by then, I would say no. I had been waiting for so long and I hadn't told any body we were getting married until I had the ring so.... I needed the ring!

Right after the proposal

Dustin proposed December 23rd (he was pushing it, don't you think?), but it was perfect! The ring was perfect, he is perfect! :) For the engagement story, please see this post: http://dustinandbrianne.blogspot.com/2008/12/its-love-story-baby-just-say-yes.html

We were married on March 14, 2009 and 2 years later, we are still in love and are so happy we are married! It was a long and hard process to get where we are now, and our love story is not a typical BYU love story..... but I am so happy with everything that we went through! We have a really good relationship and I appreciate all the time we spent getting to know each other as good friends before tying the knot.

Dustin is the man of my dreams. He is my prince charming and I love him so very much!