cliff lake // montana

one of the first time's tanner and i hung out was with a group of friends at cliff lake. i'll never forget how serene i thought the lake was. i'm a sucker for mountain lakes and this one is definitely one of my favorites. it has soft white sand and crystal clear water around the edges. it's just absolutely beautiful. while we were with our group of friends, i started getting word that tanner was crushing on me. i was kind of hung up on a boy from back home so didn't think too much of it. i liked tanner but, "as a friend." i went home for the seven week summer break and during that break tanner went to visit his grandma in salt lake. i remember him calling me and i would ignore the calls and he would leave voicemails saying he wanted to take me out. i told my parents and was shocked to hear my dad say to call him back and invite him out to dinner with my family. i felt bad for blowing him off so i called him thinking he would say no since i lived about 45 minutes from salt lake. well, he said he'd love to go to dinner with my family and then he showed up at my house about 45 minutes later.. my parents loved him right off the bat and i was just like, eh. after dinner we went back to my house and just talked on my porch for a long time and i remember tanner saying he had a hard time reading me and i'm "different" than other girls..  i could tell he wanted to kiss me and i didn't let it happen. he left that night and we kept in touch until school started back up for the fall semester. we were with each other almost every single day and my parents would always ask about him. i would just say he's good and is one of my best friends, but nothing more. me, my friend estef, tanner's friend drew, and tanner would hang out on sundays on a blanket that we called the magic blanket. everything said on that blanket was confidential and had to be the truth. we learned A LOT about each other and that's when i started falling for tanner. i also learned on the magic blanket that he was kissing a lot of other girls, and they were cute girls! over time, i started getting jealous hearing about these girls he was taking out and i remember being like, why do i care?! then bam, i knew i was going to marry him. just like that, i knew. i didn't date him just yet though… i remember telling my roommates that i was going to marry him so there was no rush to date him. 

one night, the same group of friends went to a mexican food restaurant and when we left we all gave each other kisses on the cheeks. tanner snuck in a real kiss for me and although it was just silly, it totally struck me. like lightning. i left that night thinking oh my lanta… i like him! we ended up having a real kiss shortly after and i fell for him hard. unfortunately, the fall semester was coming to an end and i was going home to work in utah for the winter while tanner stayed in idaho. we decided not to date each other and just wait to see how things played out. i ended up visiting him once over the winter then he went to utah a few times to ski. finally, in march, after he went to utah for a ski trip, we just made it official and singled ourselves off as a couple. the rest is history that i am loving writing more chapters to.