Meet the Paynes

Our crazy story, you're in for a long one so get comfy :)

The summer just before my junior year in high school I was always hanging out with my cousin Marissa. Shes 5 years older than me and we have always been best friends. Anyways... we were on facebook on night way to late and she showed me this "kid." I was obsessed. I guess you could say I was drooling... basically. He was the sexiest thing I'd ever seen! She proceeded to tell me how he had just returned home from a mission, which only added to my lust for him. We started chatting with him and one way or another we ended up adding each other. We messaged each other for a minute and I was on cloud nine. A hot RM talking to me,  a 16 year old girl in high school? Woo-hoo!

That was short lived when he found out I was only 16 and abruptly ended out chat sesh. I blew it off and had no problem stalking his attractive pictures every once in a while. Don't judge, we've all done it. Seriously. Time goes on and right after I graduate from high school he messaged me one day and says "what are we doing for our birthday?!" I died. WE HAD THE SAME BIRTHDAY?! I didn't care what I was doing for my birthday because now I had to some how fit him into the equation! We ended up exchanging numbers via Facebook and would text occasionally but nothing great. He never used smileys and I thought he was boring... FALSE. Our birthday rolled around, I was turning a whopping 18 and he was turning 23. Oddly enough we were both going to be in Vegas that day. We tried to meet up a few times but after a couple failed attempts we decided to hang out the next day. So we did. He asked me to go to his house... What? His house. I don't even know him. I remember my mom being skiddish about it, but I was 18, I did whatever. So I went, got lost on the way and showed up probably an hour late but it was well worth the embarrassment. I had no clue that this crush of mine would end up being my best friend in just a few short weeks. 

When I finally arrived he opened the door and he had long, sexy hair. Much different than the pictures I had previously seen, but it was even better. I don't even remember much of what we did but I do know that we talked about how everyone was crazy and getting married and how that didn't appeal to either of us AT ALL! Eww getting married, who does that?... 

For the first couple of weeks we would just watch Arrested Development, or funny you tube videos and laugh together. I sat 5 feet away from him on his bed and refused to cuddle. I went on multiple dates with other guys, but nothing seemed to make him jealous. I decided to give up and told my best friend Brooke that the next guy that kissed me was who I was gonna go for. Well, that night sure enough. He kissed me and that was that. From that point out we were pretty much inseparable.  We did everything together, but we weren't girl friend/boy friend status. No way. 

Eventually people began asking us if we were together and we would just sit there in an awkward silence and hope they'd walk away. We finally decided that yeah, I guess we could be "real" girlfriend and boyfriend. FINALLY.

Two weeks later on September 26, 2011 I was driving home from his house late one night and I fell asleep. I drove into a used car dealer ship on Bluff Street and took out 7 cars. I called him and acted like nothing happened. But little did he know I was in the hospital with a broken nose, broken cheek, 2nd degree air-bag burn (those are the WORST) and plenty of other things. The whole ordeal freaked him out and we decided to be friends. Who wants to get married anyways, right? WRONG. Heavenly Father was just slapping us in the face, telling us we knew what we were supposed to do. With in a week of my accident we clearly couldn't just be friends. He was at my house every night after work just sitting my bedside or laying next to me. It was perfect. 

A little over a month after my accident we knew we wanted to spend eternity together. We called the temple to book our sealing but they said we could only book it 3 months in advance. We were set, we knew the date the place and the why. Heavenly Father set it up perfectly and I wouldn't change any of it. My car accident was the biggest blessing in disguise. We couldn't have done it with out each other, and I'm so grateful for that.

Fast forward 5 months and we were engaged on February 13, 2012. We were married and sealed 4 months later in the St. George Temple on our birthday, June 30. How perfect is that? How does that even happen? It just does :) We've now been happily married for 6 months and can't believe how fast time flies. We've been overly blessed this year and can't wait to see what 2013 has in store for us!