If you are just joining me now for the first time…welcome! Before you continue on, refer to my first blog post The Beginning Pt.1 and start my story from “The Beginning”. Summer was over and we all went back to BYU for my 5th year of college in Fall of 2017. Jacob was also attending BYU. My relationship with Jacob was good, but I still didn’t feel like I could trust him. In the back of my mind, I always worried that he would second guess his decision to stay with me. Even though it was obvious that we were back on track and moving forward with our relationship. September was a good month for us to settle back in and focus on each other moving forward in our relationship. I had a friend reach out to me asking if Jacob and I would do a styled wedding photoshoot to help her and other people build their portfolios. It was weird being in a wedding dress and seeing Jacob in a suit staged for a wedding shoot. I kind of saw a little glimpse of what could be our future.

In October we started growing even closer and I started to trust Jacob more. We spent every single day together, I don’t think there was ever a day we spent apart. Things were definitely back to normal, but my family was still skeptical. They told me that I needed to prepare myself to move forward without him if he couldn’t commit. If none of the mission drama happened, I would have never worried about Jacob committing to me and our future. But in the back of my mind, I had a few insecurities about his level of commitment to me. But with the way things were going between us, I knew that we would probably be getting engaged in the next few months. Mid October I had the same photographer who shot the styled wedding shoot reach out to me to do another styled shoot. This time it was going to be an engagement style shoot. She said she would give me $200.00 to get an outfit and shoes for it and she would also have a hair and makeup person to get me ready. “Wow,” I thought. “This seems like so much fun!” I told Jacob and he was like, “uhh really you want to do that? Ok sure.” Little did I know, Jacob was the one who set everything up. He texted the photographer and told her to ask me to do a styled shoot with an incentive, knowing I would for sure say yes. The photographer’s husband was a videographer so it was kind of a double win so there would be photo and video of our proposal! I remember thinking, “wow this would be a great time for Jacob to propose since I will look good for this photo shoot”. A week before the scheduled photo shoot the photographer sent me the money through Venmo. I did not have the slightest idea that I was going to get engaged. My parents came back into town the night before we got engaged. My dad doesn’t usually visit me in Utah unless I am playing in a tennis match. I think he said he was coming up for work, but in reality, he came for the engagement. My parents, Hud, Jacob and I went to the mall the night before because I needed to get my computer fixed and pick out some shoes for the photo shoot the next day. I found the most perfect shoes for my dress and I remember feeling stoked that I got the money from the photographer to buy them. November 3rd I woke up having no idea I was going to get engaged that afternoon. I left in the morning to get my hair and makeup done not suspecting a thing. Once I left and started driving to my makeup and hair artist I kept getting butterflies. I just kept thinking, “what if Jacob was proposing to me today?” Jacob: The day before I proposed I don’t think I slept too much. I was a little nervous, but I was the most excited to see the look on Mayci’s face when I would go down on one knee. At this point, nothing would indicate that he would be proposing to me, like not one sign. If anything I was thrown off by my sister who was saying things like, “Are you sure Jacob is going to commit to you?” So to get this weird feeling inside that we may get engaged was not expected. I got my hair and makeup done and I was excited about the photoshoot. I left the makeup and hair artist and started heading back home. I kept getting that nervous feeling that we were getting engaged… but I tried to silence my thoughts because I didn’t want to be disappointed if it didn’t happen. When I got home, Jacob told me that we needed to take Hudson to the photoshoot now. I said, “Why? The photographer is going to get annoyed because she’s doing this as a styled shoot.” To be honest I was kind of irritated at first because I knew it would make our photo shoot more difficult having Hud there and I felt bad because I never told the photographer in advance. But then I thought about it… does Jacob want Hud at our photo shoot because we are going to get engaged? Once again I had my suspicions but I brushed them off because I didn’t want to expect something that wasn’t going to happen. Not long after I got home we were headed out again to meet the photographer and videographer for the shoot. On the way to the location, Jacob was so overly happy. He was talking super fast, telling me how good I looked etc. Jacob is always a pretty happy guy and gives me compliments on the regular, but he was a lot more energetic and enthusiastic than usual. So once again I was thinking, something has to be up! Jacob: I thought I was being perfectly natural on the drive into Provo Canyon. I had nervous butterflies in my stomach but I didn’t think Mayci would sense it. Let’s be honest though Mayci knows me extremely well, she reads me like a book haha. We got to the location in Provo Canyon and met up with the photographer. The photographer said that we could start going up the hill where we were going to take pictures but her husband, the videographer, needed help with some of his stuff. So Jacob stayed behind to help him. Jacob wasn’t actually helping him, he was giving the videographer the ring! Jacob and the videographer got up the hill and then we started taking pictures. Hud was sitting on a blanket we brought for him but it was SO windy that Hud wasn’t having the best time. After about ten minutes of taking pictures with Jacob, the photographer suggested we take some photos with Hudson. I remember looking at Jacob’s pockets to see if he maybe had a ring in there and I saw nothing. So then I assumed that we for sure weren’t getting engaged and that I was just suspicious for no reason. We sat on the blanket we brought from home and my photographer handed Jacob a book. She said, “I brought this book from home and thought it would be cute if you read it to Hudson for some pictures.” I didn’t think too much about it. Jacob opened it and said, “you read it, please” so I started reading it. The first page had a stick figure girl on it in a dress and it said, “I love your smile because you make life more beautiful.” The first four pages were more generic so I had no indication it was about me until another stick figure entered the story and it was a guy.

After Jacob proposed we got in the car and drove to another location in the Provo Canyon because it was SO windy where we were. We took some more photos as a family and soaked in the moment. Jacob kind of seemed in a hurry for some reason and then told the photographer we had to leave. We got in the car and he told me we had dinner reservations very soon.

Jacob and I were now engaged and happier than ever but as tennis season was quickly approaching I was starting to play tennis again. I got cleared to play tennis again in November and I started out very slow. I would stand in place and then hit balls without moving. Then after a couple of weeks, I was moving a little to the ball. It was crazy to think I only had a month to get ready for the upcoming season. Similar to what I did before when I had Hudson, but this time I was coming back from a serious injury. The last two weeks were crunch time for me. I wasn’t allowed to jog on the treadmill because it was too hard on my knee so I would bike and use the elliptical every day along with a lot of leg strengthening exercises. I actually was moving pretty well before the season started and I was also getting back into the groove of tennis. I pushed myself on the court and I practiced twice a day. It was hard on my knee though, I would be in a good amount of pain every evening after my tennis and workouts. In January I went back to BYU. I didn’t want to have too high of expectations for myself because I didn’t want to be disappointed. Being the competitive person I am, I pushed myself even harder. I would do strength training on my leg in the morning, go to class, take a private tennis lesson and then do our team tennis practice. I put in the extra effort because I was SO DETERMINED to get back to my full potential and play the #1 singles position for BYU. All my hard work, sweat, and tears paid off. When season officially started I was back on MY court in the #1 position. I felt like I was home once again. NEXT WEEK: My final tennis season at BYU and my WILD bachelorette party in Vegas! Click here to watch our full engagement video!