Courtship Part 2: First kiss

A week prior to our first kiss, Jared had taken me to Ensign Peak in Salt Lake City. For those who have not been there, it is quite the climb when it is dry, so imagine how easy it was to try to climb when there was snow and mud. It wasn't. Naturally, I clung to Jared in an attempt to not kill myself sliding down the mountain side.

We eventually made it to the top of the peak. It was so beautiful. While we were up there, my sister and Jonathan called (the ones who set us up) and asked if we wanted to come over and watch a movie. We thought that would be fun, so we headed on over. I remember how nice it felt to hold hands.

At the end of the night, he drove me home. We had built a tradition by this point (the whole 2 1/2 weeks of dating) of sitting on the porch swing and talking for a few minutes before he took off. When it was time to go, we hugged for quite some time. Funny how those little moments can be so intimate.

A week later, we went out to the Murray Art Dance Center to go ballroom dancing. Now before you get any ideas that we are good dancers, we are not. In fact, quite the contrary. I am too much of a control freak and too clumsy to make our dancing look any good. But we had fun. It felt like we were in our own little world.

On the drive back to his condo, we had discussed how we promised we would be completely honest with each other no matter what. Even if it meant it would hurt some feelings.

We got back to his condo, scooped up some ice cream, sprinkled it with jimmies, and started to watch a movie about C.S Lewis, "Shadowlands". Sometime at the beginning of the movie, I asked some out of the blue question. Something like, "What do I mean to you?"-type of question. He stopped the movie and we talked for a bit. We then decided we wanted to dance. He asked what music I wanted to dance to.

[Side note: At the time, I loved the Sleepless in Seattle soundtrack. My twin and I listened to that over and over when we would drive back and forth from Salt Lake to Cedar City. I especially loved the Louie Armstong songs.]

I asked him if he had the Sleepless in Seattle soundtrack because it would be fun to dance to one of Louie's songs, although I didn't know the names of the songs. Jared pulled out the CD and found a Louie Armstrong song. The first song on the CD that Louie sings is "Give me a kiss to build a dream on":



He read into this a little too much. He thought that I was telling him, in a subtle way, that I wanted him to kiss me. He later found out that was not my intention at all. Regardless, we danced to several songs on the soundtrack.

When it was nearing midnight, we knew it was coming to the end of date. As we were wrapping things up, Jared said, "How about one more song?" "Okay," I replied.

He played that first song again, "Give me a kiss to build a dream on" and as the music started, he said softly, "I hope I get it right this time!" And then he leaned in for the kiss. So nice and simple. I loved it!

We pretty much saw each other every day after that for a month, until his company he was working for at the time, transferred him to Buffalo.

That song turned out to be somewhat of a prophecy, because 10 years later, we're still enjoying the "dream" built from that kiss. :)