Christian and Jessica


Congratulations to this cutest couple on their new engagement! 



I seriously could not be more excited about this, Jessica is truly an amazing girl and I am so thrilled to have her as my new sister! I adore seeing my brother so happy, although I have to admit I will kind of miss our hour long chats where we analyzed every single word in Jessica’s text messages to see if she was really into him. Jess actually called me about a year and a half ago to interview me about marriage, but it was just part of a class assignment for BYU and not at all in the context of being sealed to my little brother. So now that the circumstances have changed I have a few things I’d like to add! Newlywed life is the greatest adventure but there are a lot of things that might come up that you haven't encountered so far in dating, so, as someone who has already lived with the guy you’re going to marry, let me fill you in on a few reasons I think you’ve picked the right man for the job.

1. Christian is really easy to share a closet with. And in fact, if you forget to do his laundry, don’t worry. He has no problem wearing your clothes instead.  This is one of my very favorite pictures of Christian of all time, I have no idea what we were doing but clearly it involved cross dressing and was so exhausting that he couldn’t even be bothered to change out of my swimsuit before taking a nap.



 2. He’s great at keeping the food budget low. When Christian got back form his mission he was coming to stay with Evan and I for a few weeks before he could move into his apartment at BYU. He LOVES carrots so I made sure to buy an extra bag from the grocery store for him to snack on. The night after he arrived I opened the fridge to grab some carrots for our dinner and I couldn’t find them anywhere. He had eaten what was left of our original bag plus the ENTIRE bag I bought for him  in less than 24 hours. When your bank account is looking a little sad at the end of the month, send him out the door with a 99 cent bag of carrots and he'll be ship shape!

3. You probably haven't chosen your honeymoon destination yet but with this guy you get a lot of options, because he's trilingual! You know he speaks English and Spanish, but did you know he also speaks K-9 Sign Language? When we were little we had a dog named Bandit and Christian loved him more than anyone else in the entire world, and probably still only makes you the exception to that rule. Whenever the dog was outside, Christian felt so bad for him like it was this cruel punishment so he would go to the glass back door and do all these hand signals to communicate with Bandit. It was very involved, snapping and pointing fingers, like some secret handshake? It was hilarious mostly because he was completely serious about the whole ordeal. See now won't that come in handy if you decide to go on your honeymoon to... uh...the pet store?

4. Something you'll both learn quickly is that you won’t be perfect in front of each other all the time. Lucky for you, Christian is quick on his feet and he’ll pick you up when you fall. I mean literally. One time I was preparing to host a bridal shower and sliced my hand open instead of the avocado. I went to the sink to wash off all the blood and when I looked down and saw my muscle hanging out I fainted into the open dishwasher. Christian was there in a flash to pick me up and carry me to the car. He hung out with me in the ER all day {and apparently read me Harry Potter?} while I waited to get stitched up! Hopefully your falls won't be that dramatic, but he's ready just in case.



5. You know in the movies where the character is training hard and going through this tough time so they play some pump up music in the back of the video montage to get you all excited? Christian will do that for you. He'll turn your life into a musical. This little freshman quite literally sang me through my senior year of high school, in my car after seminary, at stake dances, and in A Funny Thing Happened on the way to the Forum, and I never would have made it without him!

6. I hate to be the one to break this to you, but eventually you're going to have some disagreements. Don't worry though, Christian might not ever even know you were mad at him! In elementary school he came home one day and was explaining to my mom about some boys who never wanted to play with him. He was genuinely so confused and my mom said to him, "Well Christian, maybe they just don't like you?" and he looked at her like she had just dropped off the moon. "Mom, Everybody likes me!" he responded. It had never even occurred to him that someone might have a conflict with him! He's kinda still got that mentality so I'd guess that your fights won't be too bad.


7. Once or twice in your marriage, you just might burn the dinner. Or spend a ridiculous amount of effort following a new recipe that turns out to be entirely disguising {ask me about the Vitamix pasta sauce some time...}. But I have good news! Christian loves food challenges. In fact I don't think I've ever seen him turn one down. Most recently he conquered the Buffalo Wild Wings hottest sauce just in the nick of time, without barfing too. The Uncle Julio's jalepeno challenge on the other hand had a little rougher turn out... but in any case when you present him with something charred or smelly for his meal, just tell him he gets a t-shirt at the end and he won't even notice.

8. Marriage is all about giving 100% to your partner, and Christian is ready for that. He will serve you silently and selflessly. About 6 months ago I came down with the stomach flu and barfed my guts out for 24 hours. I was scheduled to work that night and no one would cover my shift for me so I had to go anyway. Right as I was leaving Evan started his turn with the flu. I frantically called Christian to come and take care of Winston since Evan was down for the count. Later Evan told me that when Christian got there Winston had wandered into the bathroom and was playing in the bucket I had been barfing in all day. Christian cleaned everything up and never even complained or mentioned one thing. I cried when Evan told me, what a sweetheart!

9.One of my very favorite qualities in my little brother is that he has a heart of pure gold and he sees the very best in everyone. C.S. Lewis wrote "It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship." This quote perfectly describes how Christian sees everyone, as if they already are the person they are striving to become.

10. He loves you! Over the past year and a half Christian and I have had countless conversations about dating in general and about dating you specifically. Even when everyone else told him he needed to move on, he could not let go of the idea that he belonged with you. He adores you and raves about you and has never said one negative thing even when he had no reason to believe things would work out. I am so very happy he held on and we feel incredibly lucky that you are joining our family! Congratulations sweet girl, you are exactly the girl I have been waiting to hand my brother over to and he loves you more than you'll ever know!



Comments

  1. This is such a great post! Jon and I laughed so hard, we love you guys! Congratulations Christian & Jessica!

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  2. Can't believe he is old enough to get married!!! Also, I'm standing on the stage in the green tank :)

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