In the beginning...

It all started back in 8th grade. Christian and I were both students at good ole' South Jordan Middle School. I was shy. Christian was...well..he was a 14 year old boy :) Once upon a time we had U.S. History class together. (Our teacher was Mrs. Abercrombie. She brought delicious little pastry snacks called "Zingers" for us to eat and made us watch a super long show called "Roots.")

Anyway, there was this one week in sojo middle that all of us 8th graders were making spaghetti noodle bridges. We had to design a structure that could hold so much weight, blah, blah. So for that whole week, kids were taking handfuls of dried spaghetti noodles out of the science lab and making a mess everywhere else in the school. Christian was one of these people. He and his friend Quinton decided to spice up history class with said noodles. Unfortunately for me, I sat in front of the two rowdy red-heads. They were super impressed with themselves as they flipped spaghetti pieces into my hair. (the tiny pieces of noodles pretty much matched my blonde hair perfectly. So imagine my surprise when i touched my head only to feel crunchy.) So yeah, Christian thought flipping spaghetti was the coolest idea ever. Apparently a 14 year old boy's mentality is that if you tease and bother a cute girl enough, she'll start paying attention to you. Good news for Christian, because well, it worked.

Fast forward to high school. My best friend, Alyssa, and I had some social issues. We would only hang out with each other and even when we did that, our time was spent making grape smashers and felt finger puppets of impeached U.S. presidents. Luckily for us, we sort of fell into the most epic group of friends ever. Christian was among this group. One thing lead to another and pretty soon Christian and I attended almost all the school dances together and started to date.

Homecoming 2006 

Upon graduating from high school, Christian and I were both accepted to the best gosh darn school in the state -- Brigham Young University. I suggested that as we were going to college, we try to break out of our "exclusiveness" and date some other people. Christian agreed. Then we made the terrible mistake to move into the same freshman ward. This time period is known as: Christian & Stacie -- the hard days. I dated, he got jealous. He dated, I got jealous. It was rough. We had our fair share of fights and misunderstandings but finally talked it out and we parted with good feelings as Christian left to serve an LDS mission in Atlanta, Georgia (North).

I wrote him every week for two years, but made it very clear I wasn't going to sit around "waiting" for him. While he was hitting up the pavement and preaching the gospel in GA, I was scoring free meals and dating a TON. I met some amazing guys and honestly thought Christian and I would never be anything more than just  friends. Little did I know...

The day of Christian's homecoming talk

In December of 2010, Christian returned from serving an honorable, full-time mission. I was super stoked to see him, it was great to have my best bud back in town. We both returned to school for winter semester and spent quite a bit of time together. On Feb. 14th, we decided to officially start dating again. Two months and two days later, he proposed at the site of our very first date waaaay back in high school. For those who were versed in the Christian/Stacie history, our engagement was no surprise. For some of my college friends/wardies though, they thought I was crazy to get engaged after only two months of dating!! Relax guys, I've known Christian Carnley for 8 years, this was a long time coming :)

We were married in the Jordan River Temple on July 1, 2011 and tomorrow, will be celebrating 8 months of a totally awesome marriage.

There you have it. The story behind how Stacie Purcell and Christian Dallen Irie Carnley hooked up.