WOOHOO!!!!

Friends!

WE'RE OFFICIALLY ENGAGED!! WOOHOOLIHOOO!!! Well, here is the dealio, yo. I'll lay the story out for all y'all.

THE RING: I think most of you know the story of the ring, but I'll do a brief re-cap for those who don't. Rach and I went to the temple early in our relationship to see if we should in fact get married. So many blessings afterwards affirmed the incredible feeling we got in the temple, and one of those came when her mom called Rach and said that if we did indeed get married, that she had an idea for the diamond we could use. Rach's father had given Cheri (her mom) a necklace with five diamonds, representing their five kids. Cheri said she was giving one diamond to each of the kids in memory of their father, who has passed away. Cheri's husband, Dan, is a jeweler, so he asked me to send him some designs, and then he'd design the ring using my ideas. Here's what I sent him:


THE SETUP: Rach thinks she's getting old (probably because I bug her all the time cause she's just 20 days older than me) and she would joke with me saying that she wanted to get engaged before she turned 24, and that if I didn't propose before then, we'd just have to see. So with that in mind, I devised a plan . . .

Cheri was really good at helping me make Rach think that the ring wouldn't be done before her birthday. The best was on Monday, when she called to tell her that Dan had lost a part of the ring and that shey spent all night on the floor with flashlights looking for it. (It was actually true, but it helped convince Rach that there was no way it'd be done).

So last night, I went over to Rach's place at about 9:30 and we looked at hotels in SLC and wedding photographers on her computer until about 10:45, at which time I kissed her goodnight and went back to my apt, where I had to pick up a few things. Rach calls me every night before she goes to sleep, so I was counting on this, as I had since driven back to my place and had returned, waiting for her to go to sleep. After she called, I called her roomie, who let me in, and I set up her dining room table. So, then I hid in the kitchen and called her and said that I had taken her key earlier that day, and wanted to make sure that she had it for later. She sounded confused, so I said, "well, I'm outside your door, can I come in?" So she got up and opened her door and found this:


You can't really see it, but I have strawberry shortcake (her fave) with some sparkling cider. She looked . . . stunned? I had her sit down, and I explained to her that in my family, we have the tradition of opening one present the night before someone's birthday (which, of course, is not true, I just needed her to open one of the boxes). So I handed her one of them and she opened it, and I said, "Hey, babe, I'm sorry it's not what you're expecting, but I hope you like it anyway," to which she replied, "oh, it's fine, it's not a big deal." I had taped up the box pretty well, so I came over with scissors to help her open it, and when we got to the little box inside, I pulled it out, got down on one knee and asked her to be my wife. Again. (She had me ask her before I put the $8.99 Wal-Mart ring on her finger a week or so ago).

Rach never liked my "Finding NCMO" t-shirts.
So I gave them to her (along with a lighter) for her b-day.

Here's the ring: