O.K., enough buildup already, "Skip to the end"...
All right, so you're wondering where we went from having these knee-buckling moments to getting married, and you're not in a mind to read through the whole thing. So, here is the Reader's Digest version of what happened from January 2005 to August, 2005. Naturally, there is a progression to this whole thing...

The L Word...
So, long about the Spring of 2005, things between Joni and Stephen just kept getting better. (Sick, and digustingly cute, we know. We get that complaint all the time...) The thing is, that as time and a bit kept going by, that feeling of "oh, he's/she's perfect - why oh why is the Pacific in the way!?!" fell away and instead gave rise to a "oh, he's/she's perfect - let's find a way to make this work" feeling. All of this culminated in a voice mail Joni got from Stephen at work one Spring morning on the Bayou. At the end of the incredibly sweet message, Stephen said "it". Yep, the one and only "L-Word". The thing of it was, that it was a monologue, and, since by the time Joni got the message, it was way too late to call across the world, she had to sit on this amazing piece of intelligence. So, what was the first thing she did? Go running (literally) to Angie's office on some lame work pretense, bounce (literally) through the door and lay it out on the line to the relationship sounding board that is Angela Rathle. That exchange went something like :
JONI: "Ohmygod! He said IT!"
ANGIE: "It? It, it?!"
JONI: "It. He said he loves me. He left a message and just threw it out there. Like it belonged out there."
ANGIE: "Are you gonna say it back?"
JONI: "Yeah! I totally am!"
ANGIE: "hmh!" (and then, there was a slight dance of smugness. yes, she has a dance.)
And so, it can to pass that Joni went back to her office and waited until she thought that Stephen might actually be waking up to start his day, and she called. And he didn't answer. So she left a message of her own, and yes, she said IT. Come to find out, her message is what woke him up, and her phone rang shortly thereafter. And things just got better from that moment on.

The Big Trip...August 9 - 23, 2005
And so, the adventure was set, the tickets purchased, the bags packed and the nerves getting more and more short. The only thing that offered a little bit of calm was the "big girl haircut" that Angie insisted Joni get. God only knows what made Stephen calm...
So, Angie brought Joni to the airport, and Stephen went to work on Tuesday, August 9th. Three flights, 30 hours, much hyperventilating, and 9,964 miles later, our heroes would meet. Joni would be surprised that Stephen would kiss her right off the bat, and Stephen would be surprised at how well a girl could shoot his .222. And of course, there was the crying upon separation...
And of course, there's the everything wonderful in between: the spark, the love, the fun, the conversation, the meeting of the work and family crews. And from that trip forward, the die was cast: Stephen and Joni were meant to be together, and everything from that moment to this has been part of the natural way of the world.