Matt: Caprece and I find each other

I always like to boast that I never had to ask Caprece out on an official date, we just went straight to marriage. This isn't stricktly true, but almost. Caprece and Karmen hung out often at my apartment because there were three good looking, fun guys there- Jared, Todd, and Eric, and I happened to be there too reaping the rewards of my roommate's personalities. From my view, Karmen at one time was trying to decide if she liked Jared, then later on she had a bit of a thing for Eric who turned out to be too much of a perfection freak to stay with any girl very long. Caprece seemed to initially show some interest in Todd, but after a while I actually found myself talking with her and found that I really couldn't wait for her visits to our apartment. We developed a friendship and eventually I sort of suggested that maybe we could go up to the campus (USU) and shoot baskets together. I now know that Caprece had no interest in shooting baskets, but I'm just grateful that she was patient enough to go anyway. We continued to talk and hang out with everyone, but still no official "out on the town" dates. Then Caprece decided to take matters into her own hands and invited me out for my birthday (in April). She took me to Tony Roma's in Logan and bought me a shirt for a present. We had a great evening and Tony Roma's became a special spot for us for years afterward and we spent several anniversary dinners there. When I dropped her off at her place we stood out and talked for a while and I later learned that we both wanted a good night kiss very badly, but of course I didn't make that happen so we said good night and I went home disgusted with myself about my spineless, kissless night. At this point I have to share an event that nearly ended it all for Caprece and me. My roommates began to tease me a bit about spending so much time with Caprece and so I, of course, wanted to throw them off the scent of how important she was to me. So I made a bet with my roommate Todd that I wouldn't ever have another date with Caprece. Now, I knew this was all for show, and so did Todd, but he still put the word out in our circles that I had made this bet with him about Caprece. So Caprece of course heard about this. I'm lucky that she ever spoke to me again! But she showed up at my apartment supposedly to retrieve a dish that she had left there and she was in tears as she asked for this dish. I was baffled and didn't know what to do, but thankfully had enough brain power to ask her what was wrong. Well, she let me have it about my bet with Todd and it took some doing for me to convince her that I was just playing around and really wanted to keep seeing her. I was lucky that she let me off the hook because at the time Caprece wasn't the most easily forgiving soul- she tended to hold a grudge pretty well then. Anyway, after that we started spending a lot of time together and I started going to her and Karmen's little basement apartment a lot to hang out and watch movies with Caprece. Somehow Karmen was gone a lot during that time :) - thanks Karm! We fell in love and started talking marriage and about 6 weeks after our first date to Tony Roma's we got engaged. About 6 weeks after that we were married! Caprece initially wanted a longer engagement, but I quickly convinced her that there was no reason to wait and we should just get it done. Since you all know how amazingly beautiful Caprece was, you can imagine her fiance wanting to move the wedding along! :) Caprece often talked with me about how important our temple marriage was to her and how special her feelings were that day. The Bountiful temple will always be a special and extra sacred place for me because of the many wonderful times that we spent there together, beginning with June 29, 1995 when we entered into our eternal marriage there.