Our Story

Yep. We have one.

First Meeting
Michelle met Hollis just after she moved to Seattle. She went to an institute committee meeting, and Hollis was on the Institute Council, so he was in charge of one of the committees. Our first conversation (after the meeting) went something along these lines:

M: "Hi, I'm from Wenatchee."
H: "Do you know anyone from East Wenatchee?"
M: "Yeah, I'm actually from East Wenatchee."
H: "Do you know any Younkins?"
M: "Like Kathy? YES! I love her! We were friends during junior high and high school. And we were roommates."
H: "Awesome! I love Kathy! She's so awesome! I'm one of her friends from Ellensburg. She's one of my favorite people."
M: "Mine too. In fact, my cousin Richard is the one who helped Kathy realize she should go on a mission."
H: "Yeah, I think she told me that story."
M: "Well, see ya."

Yep. Riveting stuff. And that was pretty much it for the next month.

Callings and Friendship
After about a month, Michelle was called to be on the Institute Council. Which meant that she got to be friends with several awesome people - including that kid Hollis. On November 11, Veteran's Day, the Institute Council went on a day trip to Bellingham. We went on a hike - bonding time - and had a planning meeting. So that was fun.

L to R: Michelle, Hollis, Jon, Brother Knowles, Maggie, Stephanie, Julia

But it wasn't until the next week that we did anything outside of our calling together.

One of Michelle's friends had recently broke up with her boyfriend, so she wanted to do something fun on Friday night. Michelle felt like a bunch of people were needed, so she started asking for ideas. One friend suggested that we go roller skating - it's free for University of Washington students. So at Friday Friendship Feast (the weekly institute lunch), Michelle started spreading the word and inviting people. Hollis happened to overhear the words "roller skating" and was extremely excited. So a bunch of us met at the institute and we all walked over. And we had a blast.

L to R: Hollis, Michelle, Maggie

The other event of significance that occurred at that Friday Friendship Feast was that Hollis and Michelle hatched a plan. This plan had been discussed previously, but we made concrete plans. We thought that it would be the best idea ever if we made a fake wedding announcement for our friend Kathy. So we decided to go take engagement pictures.

This is just a sample of the many pictures. More can be found on facebook or this blog post.

And we just kept doing things. This blog does a decent job of chronicling our adventures.

The New Year
So Michelle went home for Christmas. When she got back, Hollis was acting differently. It was as if he was thinking about dating her (which he was). Michelle decided that it didn't matter, she was just going to keep being friends with the awesome Hollis. And we reached a point where we were spending so much time together that we either had to start dating or stop seeing each other. So we gave dating a whirl. We whirled so well that we ended up deciding to get married. So we are - July 9, 2010.

The proposal story as found on my blog.