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If you are wanting any new updates on my life, visit Matthew and my blog at laceyandmatthew.blogspot.com!

Love you all,

Lacey

A Good (Looking) Excuse

It has been almost exactly a year since I posted last.
I am a blog slacker, but I am not ashamed! I successfully made it through my junior year of college, became a musicianship tutor (love it!), learned to cook in a crock-pot, learned to dance, saw two of my closest friends leave on missions, saw one of my best friends get married, grew closer to my family through the death of my grandpa, lost weight, gained weight, lost weight, gained weight, etc. (you know how it goes), traveled (to the ocean!), and fell in love with my very best friend!

I met Matthew Paul Brownell at the very beginning of Spring semester 2011. He was roommates with one of my best friends from my first semester of college, Justin. It just so happened that my apartment and the boys' apartment clicked and hung out all the time! We played lava monster and other night games like Ultimate Frisbee, "blob" tag, and capture the flag and played board games (bang and the picture game [aka traveling pictionary]) almost every day of the week! That was the beginning of a beautiful friendship!
 After being friends for five-ish months and visiting each other over the summer, Matthew and I started going out on dates. One in particular, sums up how fun our relationship was and continues to be:

Matthew decided that we were going to make a sand-scape for my belated birthday present and we had gone out and bought all the necessary supplies (picture frame, 25 cent plastic placemat, gorilla glue, etc) except for the sand! Because we live so close to some sand dunes, we figured we'd make a date out of it! We drove out to the dunes, filled a plastic bag full of sand, put it in the car trunk and then ran around, rolled down dunes, star-gazed, and just played in the sand. When we decided to leave, it was dark and when we got back into the car, we realized Matthew had pulled too far into the sand and we were stuck! I started laughing so hard that I couldn't breathe. When Matthew figured out we weren't going to be able to get ourselves out, he couldn't hold in his laughter either. That's when I knew I was in trouble! (and by in trouble, I mean I really liked Matthew) That is the best part of the story. I suppose I should tell the ending as well though, so we ended up calling Aubrey and Kenny to come pull us out of the sand with their truck. They couldn't get to us for forty five minutes or so, so Matthew and I sat in the car and waited. (Which really means I told Matthew to tell me a story, which he did--and if I recall correctly it was about a ninja/samari duck?) I fell asleep during the story so Matthew watched Hercules on his phone until Aubrey and Kenny showed up. It really was one of the most memorable, fun dates I have ever been on.
Shortly after that, when we had been dating about two weeks (?), Matthew pulled a practical joke on a very naive Lacey.

 I had just finished auditions for the beginning of the semester and was having a celebratory dinner with my friend Courtney. We were eating when I received a text from Matthew who told me he had broken his nose! How shocked I was! I quickly got a to-go box for my dinner and ran over to Matthew's house (on the way, I picked up a delicious Cocoa Bean cupcake for Matthew) and when I got there I was so worried about Matthew that I didn't realize for, probably five minutes, that he had taped a paper towel to his face with scotch tape. Wowwwwww. Needless to say, I ended up eating that Cocoa Bean cupcake by myself! (mostly anyways)

Another fun thing Matthew and I did at the beginning of our relationship was we took a dance class together. I was more than a little apprehensive about it when we started, but as the semester went on, I enjoyed it more and more. We learned the foxtrot, cha-cha, waltz, and some type of swing. At the end of the semester, our "final" was that we had to attend a competition and compete. Matthew and I danced the cha-cha together and had a blast. The very first round we decided  that we weren't going to be upset if we got out because then we wouldn't have to dance in front of lots of people for long. Well, we made it through the first round, and after that I think we got a little competitive and really got into it. We were both enjoying ourselves so much that we barely realized we had made it to the final twelve couples (out of 200!). Sadly, we got out shortly after that and didn't get ribbons, but it was tons of fun regardless.

Our relationship hasn't been all fun and games, but dating your best friend definitely has its perks. There is no awkward "get-to-know-you" phase at the beginning of your relationship and both people already are used to the other person's sense of humor. Funny story: About two months after we had started dating, Matthew was talking to me and said, "I didn't know how weird you were when we started dating! You are weird!" I laughed and then realized, it takes me forever to leave my comfort shell! When Matthew continued to date me, I realized he must really like me if he still wants to date me even though I take up the whole couch, I can't help my stick my finger in his mouth when he yawns, and, as he stated, I truly am a weirdo.

I am not sure exactly when I fell in love, but I did. It could have been when we were at the dunes playing capture the flag and, because it was dark, we rolled down a hill, or maybe when we beat Super Mario Brothers on the wii, or maybe when Matthew and I went on walks and almost always ended up at the snow cone shack. When Matthew proposed to me on June 24, 2012, I couldn't have been happier. I have such a handsome, intelligent, caring, humorous man in my life and I can't believe how lucky I am! I am marrying my best friend at the end of this month and I can't help but countdown! Only 23 more days until I am Lacey Brownell and I can't wait!