Do you want to hear our engagement story?
(walking up to the meadow, sweet outfit!)
Erik and I first started talking about getting married around the 4th of July. We had been dating about a month (in round 2.5 anyway) Erik was pretty adamant that I not start wedding planning or telling anyone until we were engaged ... officially! Well that wasn't really working for me. I knew that as soon as school started my life would be crazy. I also knew that we were not planning on a very long engagement so I wanted/needed to get started. I was pretty good at not doing much planning (don't think I hadn't started pinning lots of wedding stuff on Pinterest) but I wasn't so good at not telling people, that's a hard secret to keep! Let's be honest ... I was totally telling people. Erik is pretty traditional, so he insisted that he talk to my dad before we got engaged/make it official (I totally love that about him).
Erik had a work trip to Europe coming up. This was a perfect time for me to be planning so I was pushing him to make it official before he left. He promised me he would at least talk to my dad before he left but that I wasn't going to get my ring until he got home. Well isn't he sneaky! A couple days before he left he told me not to make plans on Friday night. We were going on a date.
My mom called me earlier that same week and told me that Erik had made an appointment to talk to my dad. Oops! I guess that was suppose to be a secret. I kinda messed that up too .... it was the 24th of July (a holiday in Utah) and Jennie and I planned a friend/family swim party BBQ for that night. Well that is the night he was coming to talk to my dad! He tried to be so sneaky and we let him think that he was. I totally knew the whole time that he was in the living room talking to my dad.
Friday night finally arrived. He had told me to bring my headlamp. What? Ok so we are going to dinner at Sundance and I need my headlamp? What am I suppose to wear? After asking him 100 questions he finally told me to just show up. He would take care of the rest. (he loves that I ask lots of questions ... ok no he does not love that). We had a lovely dinner on the patio at Sundance (seriously the best salmon every!) After dinner we drove up to the cabin and parked. He told me he wanted to take a walk. Well I totally new what was about to happen. So I told him I needed to run in and use the bathroom (kinda true .. I always need to go). I went up to the bathroom and started praying my guts out! I said something along the lines of, "Heavenly Father I know what he is about to do and I plan on saying yes. If that is not what I am suppose to say you have ten seconds to let me know!" I sat there for a few minutes and didn't hear anything back so I took that as a good sign. We decided to walk up to the meadow (totally his plan -- round one of dating we had gone snowshoeing up there and it kinda stuck with him). We walked up to the meadow and were just enjoying the surroundings. He turned to face me and called me my full name (he never uses my full name .. ever!). After that he said some amazing things (sorry not sharing .. too personal). Just trust me that they were so sweet! Then he got down on one knee and asked, "Will you marry me?" while he pulled a ring out of his pocket.
The ring! Let me give a little background on the ring. As long as I can remember whenever I visited my grandparents in California I would ask my grandma if I could try on her ring (this ring). It was not one she wore very often. The two middle diamonds were her mothers earrings and the side diamonds were her aunts. She had them made into this ring. I have always loved it. When she died my mom told me that she would save this ring for me. So when Erik and I first started talking about getting married I told him about the ring. I told him that it was up to him what he did with this information. We never looked at rings so I assumed he was going to use it. The rest of the proposal story goes like this:
He is down on one knee and pulling a ring out of his pocket. When I see the ring and realize that it isn't MY ring I blurt out, "What is that?" He doesn't say anything and goes to put it on my finger (I was so shocked and distracted by this ring he was trying to put on my fingers). Well it doesn't fit. It is too small. He starts going on about how sorry he is he thought it would fit. I take the ring from him and say, "I will make it fit!" I was not about to let this moment be ruined by the ring not fitting! So I cram that thing on my finger! He stands up and says, "Oh no! Can you get that off?" I say, "Why would I take it off?" (it was kinda ugly by the way ... so NOT me or what I wanted). He then pulls out my real ring and says, "Because I brought a backup just in case." Haha! Well isn't he funny! Except now I have this fake ring stuck on my finger! I started licking my finger trying to get the thing off. It did come off eventually. He put my real ring on my red and swollen finger. But wait ... I had never answered his question (like I said I was very distracted)! Erik said, "You never answered my question. Let's try this again." He got back down on his knee and asked me again. This time I said yes! After a little kissing and hugging (well duh! We just got engaged!) we headed back to the cabin.
(horrible fat hand picture! I think its the angle .. yeah that's it! I took this a couple days later at work. I was having a very hard time concentrating as you can imagine.)
It was so fun calling family and friends to tell them the news. The date was set (after checking on BYU's football schedule) for a short 9 weeks later. I could hardly believe this was happening!
And that is our story!
