Robert moved into my stake in 8th grade. We were in 9th grade choir together, but didn’t really meet and become friends until we were both in the school musical together towards the end of our sophomore year. The musical was about Joan of Arc, and he was a soldier and I was assigned as his prostitute. So we would say that the way we met was that I was assigned as his prostitute, but I think that that would raise a few too many eyebrows :-P So we just say that we were in a musical together. After a very short time, I started to REALLY like him, and I thought that maybe he liked me too, but both of us were too shy to actually say or do anything about it, so we continued to flirt and get to know each other for about a year. In that year we went to 2 dances together. We were in the next school musical, “The Music Man” together, he was Marcellus Washburn, and I played his girlfriend Ethel Toffelmier. Anyway, we had lots of fun, and were never officially together so we never held hands or anything, and then high school drama happened. I heard a rumor that Robert liked someone else, and since we never were officially anything, I just moved on. A month or so later I “became official” boyfriend and girlfriend with another guy. I didn’t know then that Robert actually still liked me and this turned him very bitter against me, and later Robert started dating another girl that sent him off on his mission.
Not long after my guy left on his mission I felt strongly that he was not the one meant for me and chose to stop writing him. Robert’s girl ended up getting married while he was out. In the mean time, I was a YCL at girls’ camp for Robert’s little sister, Jamie, and from then on we were very close. When it came close to when Robert was getting home from his mission at the end of July, Jamie called me and asked me to get friends together to come over the night Robert got home since I was in contact with most of the people Robert was friends with before his mission and were still around. So ironically, after having not talked to Robert for 4 and a half years, I not only found myself getting people to go to his house, but I was going over to his house myself and very nervous to do so, and I couldn’t understand why. When I walked in everyone told me later that as soon as Robert saw me he basically froze and got really awkward.
The next day at work at Vitality Med Spa, which my brother-in-law Shay owns and I worked at as the office manager, our computers crashed and we lost all of our client information. So Shay asked me if I had any friends that would want a job for just a couple of weeks re-inputting all of our client information. I said that I had a friend that had just gotten back from his mission the night before that would be heading up to BYU in a few weeks that might be interested in doing that. Lo and behold, Robert worked for me for 2 weeks, in which we talked A LOT and basically got reacquainted, he asked me what ended up happening with my high school guy and me, and I asked him how he handled his girl getting married, and the conversation was always surprisingly not awkward. I went to his homecoming that Sunday. He gave an awesome talk and then for the closing hymn we sang “Abide With Me” and I watched him as tears just streamed down his face through the whole hymn, and I thought to myself “Why in the world did I give up on and ruin my chances with him?!?” Then as he continued to work for me I started realizing more and more that I liked him again, and we started spending more and more time with each other.
Eventually he FINALLY asked me on a date for Friday, August 15th. The night before the date I was playing racquetball with a bunch of friends. Robert had to come late because he had a family thing. He called me when he was on his way and asked if he could steal me away for a few minutes sometime that night. So, after racquetball the plan was to go to another friend’s house to play games. Robert and I had taken separate cars so I dropped my car off at my house and road with him to the friend’s. Then on our way home at the end of the night he was SOOOOOOO nervous! We drove around for at least a half-hour. He just kept driving around and saying over and over, “Uh… I’ve role-played this in my mind a thousand different ways and none of them are working right now… when I… uh… um… have you… um…” etc. Finally, he started talking, and this is basically what he said.
“The night I got home I was having a blast. I was relaxed, seeing and talking to a bunch of friends and family that I hadn’t seen in 2 years. Then, I heard a knock at the door, and I heard you come in and start talking and laughing with my dad. I realized right then that I still had feelings for you. Then you came around the corner and I saw you and you were a hundred times more beautiful than I ever remember you being. Then over the next two weeks I realized more and more how absolutely wonderful you are. And it’s been a while now that my main priority everyday is making sure that you are happy and that you are safe. So basically, (and he started tearing up at this point) I think that I am starting to fall in love with you.” Then, he just waited for me to respond. But honestly, what do you say to something that sweet??? So I did what I felt like doing and reached over and held his hand. After a few seconds he just said, “Wow, I am actually holding Heidi Wilcken’s hand!”
The next day we had our date. We went to Build-A-Bear then went out to dinner. It was very fun and completely relaxed. After we had been talking at dinner for a bit I just came out and asked, “So what are we now?” and he said cheesily, “You mean if you were to introduce me to someone and said “This is Robert. He is my _____,” what would you say there?” I said that that is what I meant, and then he got very serious and said, “Heidi, I would love to be the guy that is lucky enough to have the privilege of calling Heidi Wilcken my girlfriend.” I said that I would be okay with that :). After dinner we went to our stake center to use the piano in the Relief Society room to play and sing songs together. He’s really good at the piano and we sang all sorts of stuff, mainly jazz, Billy Joel, and songs from musicals. And for about another week and a half we went on a date every night until he went up to BYU.
I didn’t know exactly how the whole long distance thing was going to work. I’ve never been much of a phone talker, and there are a lot of cute girls up at BYU that could have easily stolen Robert away. But we ended up averaging about 4-5 hours of phone time a night and Robert started doing what he called “weekly projects.” (More on that in the next post)
Anyway, between that and Robert coming down to visit and me going up to visit, it wasn’t long before we decided we were in this to stay. Robert came down to visit the weekend of Halloween, which happened to be the same weekend as our stake conference. People kept asking if I thought Robert would propose this weekend and I said that I didn’t because I knew for a fact that he hadn’t talked to my dad yet. I picked him up from the airport Friday night at about 7:00pm. That Saturday, November 1st, we went out to lunch with all of my married siblings and then we went and saw “High School Musical 3” (we are both High School Musical fans, it’s a guilty pleasure) and on our way home Robert said “Hey do you want to go an hour or so early to the stake center for the adult session (of stake conference) tonight and just play on the piano again like we did on our first date?” I said it sounded like fun. So we went, and since it was just before the adult session, we thought it would be more appropriate to just sing and play Primary songs. The last song that we played was “I Love to See the Temple” which is my favorite Primary song. After we finished that song Robert said, “Well we should probably head in soon but first I have to give you something.” Then he pulled the ring box
out of his sock and got down on one knee and said, “and I want to give this to you because I love you and want to be with you for forever.” And he asked me to marry him and I said yes!! It was so perfect! His one goal was to surprise me, and boy did he ever!! It turns out that he had actually flown in on Friday at about 2:00 and talked to my dad and my mom and then his mom took him back to the airport in time for me to pick him up that night. Sneaky I know!
So we were finally engaged and set the date to be married February 21, 2009. HORRAY!!
Nertz Nerd Dinner Party - August 23rd 2008
Lizzy King's Birthday Party - August 24th 2008
We're Engaged!! - November 1, 2008
Being Goofy - November 22, 2008
A few pictures taken by Mike on the day of the wedding. The rest were taken the Monday before.
Thanks to Mike!! The pictures all look amazing!
