here's how it went:
steff and matt met in the middle of june, 2002. they'd seen each other around a bit previous to meeting, and it so happened that he was moving into a new place next door to her. matt was introduced to steff as the "to be neighbor."
for the next few weeks they spent a lot of time together in a group of neighbors. in this group setting their friendship grew. on the fateful night of aug 2nd, steff and matt were the only ones out of the group around to hang out and they kissed. steff claims she didn't see it coming, but had wanted matt to kiss her. as luck would have it, matt wanted to kiss her also, but he did see it coming.
from there they started to spend more time together as a couple. things progressed rapidly and 3 weeks later, after a bar-b-que at a friends cabin, matt told her he had a weird feeling in his stomach. he mentioned that it might have just been the chicken, but then conceeded that it was more than that: he was in love. matt told her about his discovery and she seemed to have the same feelings. a little later they went for a walk and with the one hand that wasn't laced in hers, matt made a ring out of a weed and unofficially proposed to her. she said, "ok." he had hoped for a bit more, but decided 'ok' would do.
the following weekend they made a trip to enumclaw where he had the chance to meet the butler family for the first time. while up there, matt asked steff's dad for his blessing on the engagement. lucky for matt, steff's dad didn't know him very well yet and so willingly he gave it.
matt and steff were officially engaged on oct 9. he officially proposed to steff on the steps of the utah capital building with an illustrated story he had written for her. the ring was tied in some cut away pages in the book.
steff hasn't stopped looking at the ring since matt put it on her finger.
they're anxiously looking forward to dec. 13th when they can be married in the slc temple.