I've been keeping things from you. Big things.

But not on purpose. I hadn't intended on keeping any important life information from you, my faithful blog readers. It's just that I put it on facebook and thought it was pretty much a done deal. Plus, I don't need to tell you how horribly I've been neglecting my blog lately.

Let me start at the beginning, about a month ago. I was in a man tsunami. Men who wanted to date me were literally falling out of the woodwork. I couldn't figure out where they were all coming from, but they were around in abundance. It turns out being a dater is a lot of hard work! But, I was enjoying myself and it is always great to see how many great men there are out there.

One day I went to friend's wedding (met a nice boy there, we went out) and afterwards I got a text from a neat guy I'd been out with a few times telling me that since my other plans had finished I should come join him and his friends at his house. Since this guy was moving across the country the next day and it was my last chance to see him, I decided to go.

After watching a video, all of his friends left but I stuck around to chat for a while. Unexpectedly, he told me that although he was leaving for a new job on the other side of the continent in 14 hours, he was planning to win me over from Washington DC. Well, I was pretty shocked by that. In hindsight, I shouldn't have been, since he had taken me out four times that week-- he was obviously in it to win it. So, even though I wasn't sure how I felt about the idea of being swept off my feet from 2000 miles away, we stayed up late into the night talking and kissing.

He left the next day for his three day cross-country drive. He called me all along the way and I was smitten by the time he arrived at his destination. He is pretty much the best man ever. So passionate, thoughtful, giving, caring, loving. He's also smart, interesting, driven, and a very good kisser. He plans awesome dates. He is dedicated to making me happy. He even buys me things! When problems come up, we talk through them-- he loves communicating. If we argue, he calls afterwards to make sure I'm okay. He loves his neices and nephew. He loves his job and is planning big things for his life. He loves the gospel and wants the Spirit in his life. Five minutes into our first conversation, he had hatched a plan to make me his. He thinks I'm unbelievably beautiful. He knows (and pays attention to) my voice tones and can tell how I feel based on them. For obvious reasons, I decided to snatch him up and agreed to became exclusive 8 days after he left. That was about a month ago.

Last weekend, he bought me a plane ticket to go visit him in his exciting new northern Virginia life.

We sat around looking all starry-eyed at each other, went out to eat, watched football, went to a movie (and got popcorn-- I'd never had popcorn at a movie in my entire life until I started dating Tyler [oh yeah, his name is Tyler] and it turns out having popcorn at a movie is TOTALLY AWESOME), and of course we went and saw the sights Our trip to the Lincoln Memorial elicited a rather vigorous debate on Lincoln's presidency, states' rights and the causes of the Civil War. These debates are not at all unusual in our relationship. (Don't even get us started on TSA screenings or children in BYU apparel.) But, these things keep our relationship interesting.

More info on Tyler: he just finished his coursework for a PhD in Communications and is working on his dissertation. He's 2.5 years older than me. He served his mission in Italy and consequently thinks he's Italian. He cooks yummy Italian food and is very picky with his cheese. He sounds sexy when he speaks Italian. He attended the University of Oklahoma and lived in Oklahoma City for four years-- three of my siblings also live in OKC, but they didn't know each other. Although, I think it's cool that he taught at the college my brother attends. He got his bachelor's degree on a debate scholarship and later coached a debate team that placed 2nd at Nationals. Oh yeah, we met at a ward date night. He wasn't in the ward, but was a fill-in to improve the ratios. He drove down from visiting his brother in Logan to attend the ward date night as a favor for a friend-- see how it pays to do nice things for people? Also, he makes me want to be a better person. AND he sends extraordinarily beautiful flowers "just because."

He is what I like to call "a keeper."