Picture this, December 2011, Danny and I had gone on a few dates together and I was planning our next one. I'd always wanted to make "ugly Christmas sweaters" and decided that that would be such a fun date idea. I got us plain, hoodless, sweatshirts and pulled out all the festive fabric I had. During this time, I worked as a photographer at Lifetouch at the Target near us. I was set to be on call that day, but I had never actually been called in before and was pretty confident that wasn't going to happen during our date. Danny came over to the house and we got to work on our sweaters. I already had an idea of what I wanted to do and got right to work. I planned to make a giant Christmas present with big, 3D, red bow on top, with modern looking Christmas trees around the sides. I looked over to check out Danny's design and was completely surprised and impressed to see that he had been cutting out Santa's sleigh and reindeer from some flannel. I remember thinking, "sweet! This kid is artistic!" To my surprise, Danny continued to impress me as he bypassed the hot glue gun and went for the needle and thread! I was so impressed that he could sew! (He admitted that his mom was sewing teacher at the high school she taught at.) This date was going so well, until I got a phone call. It was work. I was known around the studio for the "baby whisperer." Something you should know about working at Lifetouch was that you only had 10 minutes in the camera room and 30 shots. Seriously, the camera physically wouldn't take more than 30 pictures. Anyways, my coworker had just had a walk in come in and schedule an appointment for right after her current client. It was a "mommy and me" type session - but mostly of the baby. She needed me to come down and take the client so that she could keep selling to her current one she was about to photograph. I remember thinking, "are you serious?!" I could hear the desperation in my co-worker's voice. It had been a long day for her. Reluctantly I told her I could come down to shoot, but if possible, could she do the selling? She agreed, and I broke the news to Danny that I would have to cut our date short. Danny, being Danny said it was no problem, in fact, he'd drive me down and wait for me to be done and then we could continue on our date. So sweet, right?! Knowing our date wasn't ending abruptly, I hurried and through on my work clothes - leaving our unfinished sweaters at the table. 

     I flew into the studio, clocked in and got to work. My co worker looked so grateful and then immediately apologetic when I walked in and saw the clients I'd be working with. To put it nicely, it looked like it was going to be a hard photoshoot. Grumpy baby, frazzled mom, last minute pictures for Christmas, you get the idea. I walked into that studio, and went to work. Honestly, I don't remember much from it - only that the next day when I got to work, my co worker said that they looooved the pictures and it was one of the biggest sales she had ever made because they couldn't choose! After finishing up at the studio, Danny and I drove back to the house and finished our sweaters. 

(Look at those babies!)

     I was so impressed with how good they looked! In fact, I distinctly remember thinking, "Man, I hope it works out with this guy because I want to be able to wear the sweater forever!" haha! Feeling like we needed to show them off, Danny and I drove down to the mall to walk around the hustle and bustle of the week before Christmas. We ended up getting stuff from Bath and Body Works, where I had someone take our picture. It was also on this date that we learned that half hour to close, all Mrs. Fields cookies are half off. We bought a bunch to take back to the kids. 

     We were having such a fun time and didn't want our date to end. Danny asked if I wanted to see a really cool house that was being built up by the temple that looked over the valley. We drove up to what we nicknamed, "The castle house." It was huuuge and mostly done being built. We got out of the car and snuck out to the backyard that was being landscaped. That night was extra foggy. The fog blanketed the entire valley with only the Draper Temple peaking above it. The city lights below illuminated the fog and gave it an ocean like appearance. It was literally freezing. Especially since we were only wearing our ugly sweaters. Danny took the cold as his excuse to get close, and went in for the kiss. 

    It was good, but man was it cold. I started to not be able to feel my face and we took that as a sign to get to the warm car - but not before I took a quick shot of the landscape. Since this night I have never seen the fog look like this again. It was such a fun filled night of getting to know each other with the cheesy foreshadowing of getting married in that temple just 5 months later. Smiling the whole way back to the car, we headed home to pass out the cookies to the kids. It was a good day.