The Courtship

Aw, yes, the story of how the Travis’s got to Moscow. Well, to start with, the brakes on all four of the travel trailer wheels had to be completely rewired. That took the first day out of the weekend. They didn’t even leave Fallon until they were supposed to be in Moscow, which is about 12 hours away. So, I was told that they would leave anyway and find a hotel along the way. I woke up the next morning and called them to see where they had stayed and Mr. Travis answered Katie’s phone. You see, she was driving the last 30 minutes to Moscow . . . in a full size, extra-cab, diesel Dodge pickup hauling a 20 foot travel trailer. They had driven all night, probably on Katie’s insistence. I was pretty ecstatic. They wanted a few hours to sleep and “get ready” before I went out to spend the day with them at the Iverson’s.

I did have a wonderful day with them all and whilst discussing dinner plans, asked if I could take Katie out to dinner, alone. Mr. Travis said “Sure, where are we going?” He was kidding of course, and we went out to The Broiler and had a wonderful dinner together. We even managed not to have any awkward silences on our very first date. After dinner, on our way back to the Iverson’s, I told Katie that I was hoping to actually start courting her and that I was going to talk to her dad that night, hopefully. She was very excited from what I could tell, though it was difficult to think amidst the shrills and screams. (not really, she didn’t scream . . . giggled lots, yes, but no screaming).

When we arrived at the Iverson’s, two things happened. First, we found Mr. Iverson in his bathrobe out walking the dog. He confessed that Mrs. Iverson told him that everyone would come home right when he was out there in his bathrobe. Second, we discovered that the Travis’s were not yet back from their dinner out. But of course, Mrs. Iverson was correct, and the Travis’s arrived a few seconds later to also catch Mr. Iverson in his bathrobe. I was very disappointed when Mr. Travis, in particular, wasn’t home yet, but very excited when they showed up before I left. So Katie and I went in and visited with the Iverson’s and the Travis’s for a while. Eventually, I got up and sort of just blurted out to Mr. Travis, “So . . . can we go have a chat?” Everyone in the room sort of stopped talking. He replied in a general sort of fashion, “Oh, I guess we are going to go have a chat.”

After we finished (all you single guys are going to have to wait your turn to see what actually goes on during those chats), we started to come upstairs and he said to me, “You should try to act like I said no.” I thought this would have been very funny, but I was so excited that I couldn’t do anything but smile. So we reentered the conversation upstairs and no one really asked or said anything about what had happened. But I know exactly what was on everyone in that room’s mind. A couple of minutes later, Mr. Travis interjected into the conversation that he had, in fact, given me permission to court Katie . . . as long as that was OK with Katie. I turned to her, and waited, and waited and eventually she said yes. (foreshadowing). She never had any doubt, she just wanted to see me squirm. It was a great evening, and the next day we got to worship God together for the first time. The rest of the weekend was amazing. We cooked dinner together for our families; we made stuffed mushrooms and really good beef stew served in giant bread bowls and for dessert, we made chocolate mousse with raspberry sauce. Then we had to say goodbye until Thanksgiving, though we didn’t know when we would see each other next at that point.

Bargains were struck and eventually we settled on Thanksgiving at my parent’s and Christmas at her’s, though I had to bribe her mom to let me steal her over Thanksgiving break. Thanksgiving week was a blur, but a wonderful blur. We made pumpkin pie (from real pumpkins) for Thanksgiving day and she got to meet all of my crazy family (this comment in no way refers, directly, to Uncle Jeff). I’m sure that she will let you know all about how that went down.

Skipping the goodbyes, the next time we saw each other was in the Reno airport, where they picked me up for Christmas week.

Continued in The Engagement