First Date

Jen: Our first date rocked. Ry is a huge fan of airplanes, and one day after class he asked me on a date to see the Air Show at Hill Air Force Base the Saturday before Memorial Day. It sounded really fun! We doubled with Ry’s best friend, Brian and headed up to Layton. However, it proved to be a very rainy day. On our way, we drove past Antelope Drive, and I declared, “I have lived in Utah my whole life and I have never been to Antelope Island.” Soon after, we hit bad traffic, it was raining hard, and Ry decided to bag the whole thing. He felt bad because we had driven from Provo to Layton, but he was quick on his feet and declared that we would make the trek out to Antelope Island.

I was really excited because it is on my bucket list to go to Antelope Island, but I felt bad that he was missing his airplanes. It was so fun though! It turns out that yes there are indeed antelope on the island, and also many buffalo and thousands of birds, too. (It was a romantic place, and I highly recommend it if you haven’t ever been)! Somehow we lucked out, and we came on the day that some locals were throwing some sort of cowboy hoedown. We witnessed a shootout, and we got to try lassoing a steel cow. That was embarrassing.

One final detail about our Antelope Island experience was in the gift shop. It is totally cheesy, but we both put on some mood rings and ours both went to “Romantic.” Bahaha!

After our encounter on the island, we had a BBQ at a friend’s in Bountiful, and then we went to my house to say hello to the family, but Ash was the only one home! She was the first one in the family to meet Ry! We visited with her and then drove back down to Provo. Brian fell asleep in the car so we dropped him off and then we got frozen yogurt. What a date! I know this is totally weird, and it really is so unlike me, but after our date I definitely knew this guy was marriage material.

Ry: So I’m a total airplane nut and heard about an airshow in Utah. I figured it would be an interesting double date idea, far better than the typical “Hey. You, me, insert-movie-title-here. sound good”. I planned it out and stopped Jen after class one day. I asked if she was free and then invited her to come on the date with me.

I checked the weather what seemed like every hour. It looked like it was going to rain hard that day, which kind of upset me. I hoped for the best, and we continued as we had planned with the date. On our way up to the Airshow, the weather and traffic took a dive for the worse. Stuck in traffic and with no real prospects of airshow-ness, We canned the plan.... I was BUMMED. I brought my friends 90 minutes through the rain, and the back up plan was bowling and yogurt.... Fun, but definitely a type of fun we could have enjoyed without a useless 3 hour drive.

Anyways, we were on the freeway and we saw a sign pointing out antelope island. We took a quick poll of the passengers and decided to turn off and try it out. To our surprise, the bad weather was almost specifically over the airfield and Antelope island really benefited from the wind. We saw many buffalo and found some pretty picturesque spots where we got to hike. I remember in the gift shop when Jen tried on a mood ring. It said her mood was “romantic”; I was praying it was accurate.

Our island adventures ended at a really fun hoe-down rodeo western thing.... we saw a gun fight and got to explore an old ranch house. Jen even got to try her hand at a lasso. Ask her how that went.

The barbeque was fun and eventually we headed back to provo from Bountiful (but not before stopping at Jen’s house to say hi to Ashley). Once home we dropped off my wingman and we decided to get some Icecream and talk by a fire pit.

It was all very fun, but I have to admit that I was quite worried it had been too much. It really was like an all day date. I was a little tense.