Rachel + Austin

We put the 'must' in moustache

2010-03-14T18:55:00.000-07:00

As much as we love football games, we haven't been locked in a tailgating time warp for the past four months. We've actually just been too lazy to update the blog. So we'll catch you up on what we've been doing:

Celebrated Christmas...

Rung in the New Year Greek-style...

Discovered Los Angeles mountains and great hiking trails...

Got artistic for Stephen's homecoming...

Visited Solvang and Santa Barbara with friends...

Road trip-ed to San Francisco...

(Biking around town and across the GG Bridge, about 12 miles in all)

(visiting Austin's high school buddies in SF)

Taking the long way home on PCH
No this background is not fake (and neither is the wicked sick 'stache)

And most recently, hiked with Austin's dad in Topanga Canyon...

Game On!

2009-11-22T16:17:00.000-08:00

Saturday is for college football, and we spent this last one cheering on our new team, the UCLA bruins.

UCLA plays in the Rose Bowl, which sounds great until you realize that it's all the way across town. BYU's LaVell Edwards Stadium was just across campus, and there wasn't any traffic.

The drive wasn't bad though, and it gave us a chance to do some tailgating with our ward friends.
We got to use the grill that G&B gave us!

Of course we wore our new UCLA shirts for the occasion.

The student section was, well, different that at BYU. But our seats were pretty good.

The girls enjoyed the game from a little different perspective than the guys.

Games here are quite a bit different than in Provo, but we still had a great time. And it didn't hurt at all that UCLA won.

One question is still nagging us: If BYU plays UCLA, who do we cheer for?

All Aboard!

2009-11-15T20:33:00.000-08:00

"Why don't they have a subway in LA?" You ask.
Well they do! It's just not entirely done yet!

This week they completed the Gold Line extension from Downtown to East LA. As part of celebration they let everyone ride the new line for free on the first day.

Everyone else must have gotten word of the special because there was a loooooooong line to catch the new subway at Union Station. We waited 40 minutes.

And I thought LA traffic was limited to driving a car!

Enjoying the ride!

Technically it's not a true "subway" because it surfaces and travels at ground level for a couple miles. It's still pretty cool though.

Partying with the mariachi band at the East LA Civic Center!

Now they just need to extend the subway westward so we can ride. The current projected completion date for that end is 2030, so we might be waiting a while.

Turkey Trot Training!

2009-11-10T19:09:00.000-08:00

You don't wanna mess with this! We may not have the altitude advantage anymore, but we're a force to be reckoned with. Check out that stance. Yow!

Fright Night Delight!

2009-11-01T17:49:00.001-08:00

We've been laying low for the past few weeks, trying to stay on top of things at school. This last week brought Halloween and memories of last year's, which we spent with Greg and Brianna.

Now it's a new year, in a new city, with new friends!

We had some of them over earlier this week to carve pumpkins.

On Halloween we stayed inside and made caramel apples with some more friends, while passing out candy.

It's funny though; kids around here don't say "trick or treat" when you open the door. What's up with that?

Bike Rides!

2009-10-02T16:03:00.000-07:00

We have been enjoying a new hobby whenever Austin needs to take a break from school. We pack up our bikes, take them over to the beach, and ride as far as we want! Today we rode north for about 4 miles, and 4 miles back.

Mystery Spot

2009-09-13T23:22:00.000-07:00

This weekend, while exploring downtown LA, we stumbled across a spot featured prominently in one of this summer's movies.

Panorama of the view from the spot (taken with Austin's phone).
Can you guess the movie this location is from?

Just in case you need more help...
Here we are at the spot

And here's the spot from a little farther away.

Good luck!

Back to School

2009-09-08T18:43:00.000-07:00

Guess who just started her classes as a structural engineering graduate student?

Updates

2009-08-30T20:28:00.000-07:00

Just a few updates on us, nothing too amazing:

Schools continues on for Austin. It's a lot of work, but he loves it.

We just got him a new laptop to stay on top of things (see above).

He just applied for selectives (that's what they call electives in medical school).

He's hoping to work in the bone marrow transplant center, but it's on a lottery and probably not too likely to happen.

Even though we live close to family now, Stephanie is the only one who likes us enough to come visit.

We went to In N Out with her this week. UCLA has one of only three uniquely laid-out In N Out locations. The one here was designed by Kanner Architects.

Amid all the craziness, we still find time to go to the beach (not that hard when we're only a 10 minute drive away). Here's the amazing sand castle we made on Saturday.

Med School - Week One Done

2009-08-09T16:13:00.000-07:00

Austin finished his first week of medical school! He was really excited to start and is loving it so far. There are many things to get during the first week like books, scrubs, a stethoscope and other scopes, white coat, badge, etc.

Here is Austin trying on his scrubs:

This is his favorite part about them:

On Friday night there was a White Coat Ceremony in Royce Hall at UCLA. This is when the students receive their white coats which represent humanism in medicine and also take the Medical Oath.

Here is Austin receiving his white coat (aka "being cloaked"):

The two of us after the ceremony:

Lots of family came to support Austin (including Ryan and Christian who were more interested in finding the food than taking pictures):

I'm so proud of Austin--he has worked VERY hard to get here!

No Summer Bummer For Us!

2009-07-31T11:10:00.000-07:00

We've had several people visit us here at our new home.

Greg and Brianna stopped by on their way through California. The wanted to show us some property they're thinking about buying...

After BH, we went down to Universal Studios and caught a taping of the Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien. So Awesome!

Then Jeff and Stephanie came up to check out the Museum of Tolerance, and other sights too.

We visited Griffith Park...

... and got really close to the Hollywood sign.

Jeff actually hiked up to within a few hundred feet of the sign, but was turned away.

We've been having a great time playing around in LA since we moved in. Now we're trying to squeeze every little bit out of these last few days before school starts for Austin on Monday!

First Anniversary Post!

2009-07-19T21:14:00.000-07:00

First things first- we made a decision on medical school...
We will dutifully obey the results of our poll and attend UCLA this August!
(By the way, Rachel is mad that Baylor beat UCSD)

Here we are visiting UCLA in 2007.
It was destiny that we'd end up there!

In the meantime, we've been up to quite a few things while being funemployed this summer...

We've been painting Austin's parents' house.

We attended a Robinson family reunion in Farmington, Utah.

We moved to our new apartment in Los Angeles!!

Rachel's family helped out with the move.
We unloaded everything in an hour and a half!

Rachel loves the new apartment.

Austin loves the location (as you can clearly see by the expression on his face).

(No really, he likes it.)

Visitors

2009-03-29T19:32:00.001-07:00

This past week Dylan and his parents were in Utah and he brought them over to our place!

We had fun getting lunch together, checking out the sites on BYU campus and just catching up.

Jacob even came to visit us. He and Austin had a little Sasquatch and the Yetis reunion, playing some of their old favorites from freshman year, "Theme Song," and "Nancy."

A little picture of them as freshmen. Austin still has that shirt! Ah, good times...

Also in the news... we attended banquet honoring this year's graduates in Civil Engineering.
Austin, along with all the other engineering spouses, got a certificate of achievement for "putting Rachel through."
Austin says it's nice to finally get some recognition!

Last but not least

2009-03-16T19:33:00.000-07:00

We got in to UCLA! ...which was the last school to hear back from. Now it's decision time! Please help us by participating in our poll.

Rook Score

2009-03-15T20:44:00.001-07:00

Just in case anyone is keeping score...

Round	B&G	R&A
1	-75	40
2	25	40
3	40	125
4	40	225
5	140	225
6	225	240
Final	305	260

Rex Lee Run

2009-03-15T20:22:00.002-07:00

It's the middle of March and you know what that means: time for the Rex Lee Run! This was our fourth consecutive year completing the run.

Getting ready at the start. We told our body guard (standing alert at top left) that we'd be okay by ourselves, but he came along anyway.

Time chips are a must these days. After four runs (3x10k and 1x5k), we've run 70 kilometers to cure cancer together. That's almost two marathons.

Dr. Simmons, Austin's research mentor, is also the director of the BYU Cancer Research Center so he is in charge of the run. Don't worry, he's using that gesture to direct people at the start line.

A very flattering picture of us about mile 3.
This year wasn't as warm as others- about 29 degrees at the start.

Nearing the end!

DLS rocks the mic as you come into the finish.

Together for a cure <3

I think it's spring!

2009-03-08T18:37:00.000-07:00

We'll...at least I hope its spring. We've had a pretty "warm" past couple weeks. It only snowed once and then melted the next day.

More proof that it's spring...TULIPS!

Weekend with Greg and Bri!

2009-03-01T20:40:00.000-08:00

Friday night we hung out with Greg and Brianna...went to Olive Garden and played Rook. We taught them the official "Robinson rules" and they love it! Quote from Greg: "Rook is my favorite game!" There won't be too many more times we can do this since we'll be leaving Utah in a couple months.

We tried some Calamari, which had Austin acting a little strange

Greg and Bri being cool like always

Look out Christian and Katie, we've got new Rook buddies! Same old story though-- Greg and Brianna always beat us too. It's pretty exciting playing with them though. Greg won't let anyone take the bid for less than 75.

I hope they call me on a mission...

2009-02-22T19:15:00.000-08:00

Rachel's brother, Derek, reported to the MTC this past Wednesday! He will be going to the Colorado Springs Mission. We picked him up from the airport on Tuesday night and then we all (Rachel, Austin, Greg, and Brianna) took him to the MTC the next day. Here he is pre-MTC:

Two suitcases for 2 years...wow, they must be heavy.

Derek's favorite phrase on a cake.

We took him to breakfast (his last supper) at Kneaders the morning before he reported.

Here we are walking to the MTC from Wymount. It's faster to walk there than to drive. It's crazy how close he is to us right now!

Here's Derek in the MTC, looking very official with his name badge. We loved the orange "celestial dot" they give you on your first day (aka. "dork dot").

Good luck Elder Martin! Have fun in Colorado!

Prostaglandin Endoperoxide Synthase

2009-02-01T15:05:00.000-08:00

Guess who's submitting their undergraduate thesis tomorrow? The title alone is long enough to make me bored:

"Posttranslational Modification of an Intron-1 Retaining Cyclooxygenase-1 Splice Variant in Rat Spleen and its Effects on Enzyme Activity"

January

2009-01-25T21:32:00.000-08:00

What's cooler than visiting New York City? Why, being visited by Derek and Jeff of course!

Jeff came up to try out the Utah snow- he had ski resorts in mind, but we took him tubing at Rock Canyon Park!

He ended up snowboarding at Sundance and Canyons too

Austin timed this throw perfectly to meet Jeff as he hit the first bump- heh heh heh.

We had a lot of fun with the guys over the MLK Jr. Holiday and were really sorry to see them go.

This past week also marked our 6-MONTH-IVERSARY, or our first "semi-anniversary"!

We celebrated with some gourmet cuisine...

... then saw BYU's production of Thoroughly Modern Millie. It was fabulous!

Did you know that it was first performed at the La Jolla Playhouse at UCSD?
Coincidence?

NYC Bay-Bee

2008-12-14T18:27:00.001-08:00

Even though no one will read this beside Irenicus, we wanted to post some pictures of our New York trip.

We had so much fun- New York is cool any time of year, but it's really special at Christmas.

We saw Saks Fifth Avenue and the windows...

...went to Central Park (it was really cold)...

... visited the Guggenheim (designed by FLW)...

... navigated the subway system...

... got real close to a lot of New Yorkers...

...saw the Christmas Spectacular at Radio City Music Hall (did I mention it was cold?)...

... took a stroll through Times Square...

... and on top of all that, ate great pizza in Little Italy, checked out Rockefeller Center, saw the Statue of Liberty, visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art and had the time of our lives.

Peace.

New York

2008-12-08T20:14:00.000-08:00

Whew! We just made it back from New York (2:00 am last night), where we had a blast.

For now we'll leave you with a picture of the tree we bought while in town.
More info to come...

December is the new November!

2008-12-02T20:57:00.000-08:00

So who ever wanted to read a boring blog post during the month of November? That's what we figured and decided not to write anything until month #12 arrived.

Of course we had to go to California for the annual Turkey Trot.

For the uninitiated, the Turkey Trot is basically like a double marathon conducted under extremely low oxygen conditions. There are only two ways you can qualify to run it:
1) climb Everest or 2) win the Boston Marathon

Rachel during pre-race warm ups. You can tell by her face that the Turkey Trot is all business.

Here we are nearing mile #38. Don't let those ladies in the background fool you. We're all sprinting right now.

Catching our breath after the race!

The next day we played an all-Martin family soccer match.
Jeff (in orange) won the offensive MVP award.
Rachel won the award for the cutest player on the field.

Brian organized a boys vs. girls ginger bread house contest.

Greg and Brianna acted as judges from Provo

The boys hard at work. Brian and Austin didn't get the memo that their team color was orange.

The boys' final product.
Don't ask me about the snowmen in front because I don't know.

The girls putting the finishing touches on their submission.

Guess who won? The boys.

(like it was ever in doubt)

Spooky Dinner!

2008-11-03T20:38:00.000-08:00

And here comes our obligatory Halloween post...

We spent Halloween chillaxin' at Greg and Brianna's place.

They made a spooktacular dinner with scary shapes and orange cupcakes.

My favorite part of the evening was giving out candy to trick-or-treaters. Because there were two couples present, each visitor received twice the normal amount of candy.

Of course, what Halloween meal would be complete without grilled pineapple?

Rachel being great, like always.

Woot! Woot!

2008-10-19T21:31:00.000-07:00

We were accepted to medical school!! Yay! We were really excited to hear back so soon (this is the first week you start hearing back). So here are the schools we've been accepted to so far...

UT San Antonio

Ohio State

UC San Diego

Another Milestone!

2008-10-19T17:53:00.000-07:00

By far the most important event of this past week was our 3-Monthiversary. Every moment since our wedding has been exciting and wonderful. This time has been the happiest of our lives by far.

Houston, Ya'all!

2008-10-19T14:19:00.000-07:00

The interview circuit brought me to Houston this past weekend, where I managed to squeeze two schools into one day. I interviewed in the morning at the University of Texas Medical School at Houston (UT Houston) and, in the afternoon, at Baylor College of Medicine (BCM).

My day lasted from 7:30 am until 7:00 pm, and it would have been longer if I hadn't skipped out on the Baylor sponsored gathering at a local pub that night.

UT Houston

Baylor

The two schools are actually located within a two hundred yards of each other. They are both located within the Texas Medical Center- the largest medical district in the world (yes, everything is bigger in Texas). Its 45 medical institutions (among them 13 hospitals and 2 specialty institutions) provide more than enough clinical training opportunities for students of both schools.

The commons buildings, just one of many impressive places at the TMC.

One of the two 65-foot waterfalls flanking the commons building. Behind that you can see MD Anderson, the #1 cancer hospital in the country. Pretty Impressive.

I stayed with the Anthons- friends that used to live in my parents ward in California. They were such gracious hosts, driving me into the city and everywhere I needed to be. Larry (or "Doc") took me out to dinner to celebrate the successful completion of a very busy day of interviewing. Thanks Larry and Susan!

Autumn in Provo

2008-10-05T21:13:00.001-07:00

Having grown up in Southern California, living in Utah can be a bit of an adjustment. One novelty has definitely been living through four distinct seasons. As Autumn now unfolds on us, I thought I'd take a minute to review some of the cool things there are to do during this time of year in Provo:

BYU football (of course)

Corn Maze, or as I like to call it, "the Maize Maze"
[Doesn't Rachel look soooo cute in this picture?]

Drive through Provo Canyon and check out the leaves.

Speaking of leaves, you can always play in them too!

Celebwation

2008-09-21T19:47:00.000-07:00

Friday was our 2-monthiversary. Yay!

Another Trip, whew!

2008-09-18T19:04:00.000-07:00

Austin just got back from another round of interviews. On Monday he was in Columbus, Ohio at Ohio State University, and on Tuesday he visited Vanderbilt in Nashville, TN (above). For some reason he only took pictures at Vanderbilt and decided not to include himself in any of them.

A statue on the undergraduate campus. The place was filled with beautiful green trees punctuated by buildings in the distinguished architectural style you would expect at a university in the South.

While he was there, he checked out a couple of other places:

Took a break between interviews to watch the local sushi place burn down.

Apparently we're so important that the medical school has dedicated an entire building to researching us!

Austin was most impressed with their global health program. Here's a close-up on the map of some places their students have visited as part of a school-funded research program.

Our Apartment

2008-09-10T18:59:00.000-07:00

We finally got around to taking some pictures of out little apartment. Here they are for your viewing enjoyment:We live on the bottom floor in Wymount Terrace, BYU's student family housing. We love it!

Welcome!

The kitchen

Here's the living room, where we entertain our many guests.

We finally got the bed we ordered over a month ago. Austin's favorite is the dresser that Rachel assembled and painted herself.

Austin, as always, hard at work on our computer :)

Foosball is of the Devil!

2008-08-31T18:47:00.000-07:00

We went to the BYU Football home opener this Saturday. Here are some pictures Rachel took with her phone:

As you can see, we had pretty much the best seats in the stadium.

Greg and Brianna, who accompanied us, were optimistic about BYU's chances.

Austin, however, was worried as always (His severe nasal congestion didn't help either).

In the end BYU won and everyone went home happy
(Unless you like Northern Iowa)

WE'RE MARRIED!!

2008-08-19T12:46:00.000-07:00

Sorry we haven't posted in a while! Life has been chaotic (and wonderful) since the wedding...honeymoon, moving to Utah, buying furniture, unpacking, trip to Zion National Park, etc. And in case you didn't notice, today is our one month anniversary! We're really excited about that. This month has been a great start to our lifetime of marriage and happiness.

We're not going to post any pictures of the wedding because nothing can compare to the amazing pictures taken by our photographer, Amelia. So click on the links at the top of the page to view pictures of our wedding on her blog and a slideshow.

More Tulips

2008-04-20T11:41:00.000-07:00

For your viewing pleasure, I've included another adorable picture of Rachel with some of the splendiferous flora from the Tulip Festival. Isn't she just wonderful?

Reminder: if you want to get a wedding invitation, post your address as comments under the "addresses" post. Time is running out!

Let's Celebrate!

2008-04-18T21:55:00.000-07:00

Please excuse the lengthy time gap since our last post. Finals are upon us and we are struggling to keep afloat. We did, however, find time to visit a tulip festival in order to celebrate the arrival of our new (or, in Rachel's case, soon to be) nephew: Peanut.

The Festival of Colors!

2008-03-31T17:13:00.000-07:00

This past Saturday we had the opportunity to go with some of our friends to the Krinshna Festival of Holi (aka the Festival of Colors).

"In India Holi announces the arrival of spring and the passing of winter. It is a festival that breathes an atmosphere of social merriment. People bury their hatchets with a warm embrace and throw their worries to the wind. Every nook and corner presents a typically colorful sight. Young and old alike are covered with colors (red, green, yellow, blue, black and silver). People in small groups are seen singing, dancing and throwing colors on each other."

The festival is held every year at the Krishna temple, located in Spanish Fork. We actually attended last year, but didn't make it in time for the color throwing. People from all over Utah and Salt Lake counties, including numerous BYU students, attended the festival.

Here are some pictures of us before and after the throwing of colors:

Here we are holding the colors before the throwing began. The color consists of chalk/flour-like powder.

And here we are afterwards. Notice the cloud of dust in the background. The cloud was MUCH much larger during the color throwing, we're lucky we didn't suffocate!

I'm cleaning Austin off on our way home. He withstood a very colorful blow to the eye!

A Bountiful Easter

2008-03-23T19:38:00.001-07:00

We spent Easter Sunday in Bountiful with Grandma Joyce, Uncle Shawn, Aunt Jill and their family. It also happened to be cousin Wyatt's 15th birthday. Here he is about to blow out his candles.

We had a lot of fun playing with the cousins in Grandma's backyard.

Audrey was so happy to see Rachel again that she just about burst. The two enjoyed the beautiful Spring weather running around the yard.

Austin tried to play the "monster" game with his younger cousins. It would appear, however, that Austin needs to improve his terror-instilling abilities.

Even little Adam joined in the Easter activities. His favorite activity was eating the chocolate eggs that Olivia and Audrey helped him find.

Rex Lee Times Three!

2008-03-16T20:00:00.000-07:00

Saturday was the annual Rex Lee Run for Cancer here at BYU. This was our third time running the race together. While the first two times we completed the 10k, this year we ran in the 5k due to considerably less time spent training. It was odd running the abreviated course, but still fun to keep the tradition alive. Even though the weather had been beautiful the last two years, the transition to Spring has hiccuped this year, leaving us with cloudy conditions and a frigid 40 degrees to jog in. It actually snowed later in the day! All in all the run was a good experience. Next year we're going to win the entire thing!

Here we are before the start. It was early and we were feeling poorly so don't look too hard at us!

Austin with some of his co-workers. Their research advisor is the director of the BYU Cancer Research Center and is in charge of the Rex Lee Run. Austin's lab competed in the race against another professor's biochemistry researchers. Results are still pending...

Timeline

2008-03-09T20:30:00.000-07:00

For all those of you who do not know every detail of our 2+ years of courtship, we have included a timeline of some of things we have done together. Click on the image to expand it.

We got the ring!

2008-02-22T21:07:00.001-08:00

Where?

2008-02-16T18:12:00.001-08:00

The Newport Beach temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is relatively new, dedicated in August 2005. It is a beautiful building on the outside, but the inside is really the wonderful part: that is where we will be sealed for time and for eternity.

Addresses

2008-02-10T23:13:00.000-08:00

Please leave your name and address here if you would like a wedding invitation.

Engaged

2008-02-10T19:20:00.000-08:00

If you're reading this you probably already know, but this is the official announcement that we're engaged. Yes, after 2 years, 1 month and 23 days of pleading, Rachel finally accepted a marriage proposal. Here's how it went down:

On December 27th, after months of careful and nervous planning, we went on an excursion to Los Angeles. I didn't tell Rachel where specifically we were going, just that we would be in Los Angeles the whole day. I had prepared a list of Frank Lloyd Wright (her favorite architect) buildings in the Hollywood area that we would visit together.

Our first stop would be the Hollyhock house, located on a hilltop in view of the famous Hollywood sign and the Los Angeles coast. According to my plan, we would go on a tour of the house, then visit the remaining sites before returning to Hollyhock. Then, overlooking the Los Angeles skyline and out to the ocean as the sun dipped into the Pacific, next to one of the most beautiful homes in the world, it would be the perfect moment to propose; to ask Rachel to let me be a part of the beautiful home she will one day build.

It was a flawless plan. I had accounted for everything. Everything except the possibility of Rachel feeling ill. Sure enough, as soon as we had completed the tour, Rachel started complaining of a headache. "No problem," I thought, "we'll get her some ibuprofen, and in 30 minutes (just in time for sunset) she'll be good to go."
30 minutes later Rachel, after taking the medicine, was writhing in pain on my passenger seat. It didn't seem that she would be better any time soon. Full abort. There was nothing to do but drop all my carefully crafted plans and take her home immediately. So we departed home through the mess of LA rush hour traffic, my dreams crushed.
Only as we neared Corona 90 minutes later did Rachel start to perk up. Then, right before we got to her house, she declared that her headache was gone. Perfect timing. It was like she was trying to prevent me from popping the question.

We bypassed Rachel's house and I took her to get some food at a local restaurant. Only as we ate and I became convinced of the veracity of her recovery did I start again to consider going through with my terrible plan. But how? It was already dark and returning to LA was out of the question. Wait until another day? Not realistic considering we would be leaving for Palm Springs that weekend. To wait any longer would mean proposing only days before our return to school. The wooden ring in my back pocket was getting heavier and heavier as we left the restaurant and drove across town to Rachel's house. I made up my mind: prudence required immediate action.

As we walked up Rachel's porch, I steered her from the front door and toward an adjacent bench where we sat and talked. I tried and tried to transition our conversation to a topic from which to spring my proposal, but, as I am prone to do in critical situations, I lost all cognitive abilities. I couldn't even complete a coherent sentence, to say nothing of crafting the most important petition in my life. Exasperated at my inability to communicate and having decided that the physical gesture would be more effective than anything I could say, I stood up from the bench and took a step forward in order to swing around and kneel in front of Rachel. When I turned around, however, she was standing in front of me, trying to find a reason for my irrational behavior. Once again I tried to say something appropriate but my leg must have given out because I found myself on one knee in front of her. At this point there was nothing to do but ask her to marry me.

Normally a direct question like "Will you marry me?" would elicit an equally direct answer (usually either "yes," or "no.") Neither of those two came from Rachel, but something more along the lines of "Are you serious!?!?!?!" Instead of responding verbally (by this point I had completely lost all powers of speech) I took the wooden ring from my pocket and placed it on my open palm to assure her of my intentions. Evidently, this wasn't enough to convince her because she kept repeating her previous question, each time more emphatically than the last.
She must have been nervous about her family observing this scene from the house because she alternated between looking frantically into the house and trying to cover me (keep in mind that I am still kneeling on the ground) from the view of the house.
As luck would have it, nobody could be seen inside the house. Rachel, who still hadn't found it requisite to answer me, would not be pacified. She grabbed my arm and tried to pull me away from the porch to another, less evident location. I, however, would not move without an answer. I did not budge (even though my knee was throbbing at this point) and repeated my question. Rachel's fear at being seen must have finally overcome her good judgement because there escaped from her mouth "okay fine," all the while trying to move me away from the house. Finally placated, I agreed to move to safer quarters where we could hash out the details of her resolution.

For your whole life you dream about your proposal.
You imagine the perfect situation in which you will hear the perfect the response of your bride-to-be, which will sound something like an ecstatic "yes!" or "of course!" On December 27th a lifetime of dreaming came to an end as I finally asked the much-anticipated question. I certainly hadn't envisioned it happening on a front porch and, while the response of "okay fine," was not one I had expected, the wonderful character and amazing qualities of Rachel Martin have far exceeded my wildest dreams of the person from whose mouth the response would come. Her perfection makes up for the many flaws of my plans. "Okay fine," was the best response imaginable.