Well this semester has been a crazy one, but the crazy has been mostly good.
It's not much of a secret that Barry and I got engaged on Sunday afternoon.
I thought this would be an appropriate place to tell the story.
There are two parts to the story, so I hope nobody minds that I share both parts.
Part One: The Ring
So, a couple of weeks ago Barry bought me a ring of a website called brilliantearth.com which is a jewelry company that uses non-conflict diamonds.
The day after he bought the ring, he was talking to his mom on the phone about how he bought and just expressing his hopes of this being good timing and God's timing. In the middle of their phone conversation, my dad called him.
Apparently my family had just inherited this ring from a very close and dear family friend Elizabeth Whitney, this ring was her mothers wedding ring and is over 100 years old. My dad had told Barry if had wanted it that he was more than welcome to it but there was no pressure. Immediately he felt confirmation on God's timing and called to cancel the ring he had previously ordered.
Last Monday Barry called my dad and asked him if he go down to Phoenix on Thursday and look at the ring and meet with my dad.
Before I continue on, it is important that everyone knows that I am a very hard person to surprise, Barry has struggled with that all of our dating relationship so what happens next is crucial to the surprise element.
Thursday comes around and I call Barry after my class gets out at 11:40 to ask if he wants to hang out and make lunch together. His response, "I can't I'm sorry, I am running errands on the east side of Flagstaff for my mom." (His mom is a Realtor and has had houses in Flagstaff before so that was not hard to believe)
I was bummed out but just went home and worked on homework. However, he was really in Phoenix talking to my dad and getting the ring.
Friday comes around and Barry asks if he can take me out on a date after church on Sunday, at first I said yes. I later realized that Sunday was college lunch at my church and I really wanted to go, I kept asking him if we could go on a date another time but he was very adamant about taking me out on Sunday.
I talked with my roommate Alida about it and she convinced me to go out on Sunday. She made two valid points; I am allergic to the majority of the food at college lunch and there will be more college lunches, so agreeing with her I said yes to our lunch date.
Sunday comes around, and after church Barry and I get in the car for our date. He handed me a single red rose, at the time I didn't think anything of it because it wasn't out of the ordinary. He asked me to close me eyes because he wanted where we were going on our date to be a surprise.
We drove for about 20 minutes, and all I could think about was, "where the heck are we going?"
Finally, we parked and Barry told me to open my eyes, we were surrounded by a a huge field.
I gathered together that we were going on a picnic, but not only was it a picnic, it was my very first picnic.
Barry gathered the blankets, the picnic basket, and the food we headed down towards the field, it was in that moment that I realized this was the field that we had built our first snowman together (and my first snowman ever).
I watched Barry set everything up for our picnic and went over to sit down but he asked me to stay standing. He finished setting up the picnic walked over to me and gave me a hug. I looked up at him and he had this huge smile on his face. I asked him why he was being so smiley and he said, "I just love you a lot" I responded by saying, "I love you a lot too."
Then, he backed up, got down on on knee, and said, "Will you marry me?"
I was in so much shock that I was speechless, I was certain he hadn't talked to my dad and this was so unexpected. Through the shock, teary eyes, and joy I managed to say, "Yes!"
Barry and I are so excited that God has brought us this far and walked with us through our relationship. We cannot wait to see what he has in store and what he wants to teach us through our engagement and marriage.
We are planning to get married on the 18th of June 2011.
