Saturday, November 19, 2011

One year proposal anniversary

One year ago, my handsome husband proposed to me. Now we're almost seven months into marriage and I can hardly believe it. In reminiscing, I've decided to put our engagement story on the blog. If the task of reading this post seems daunting, feel free to skip to the last paragraph where you'll find the juice of the story.

On Friday morning while working in Salt Lake, my brother-in-law texted me and said he had run into Troy on campus and wanted to invite us to a dessert and game night. I called Troy to ask if he’d like to go. He said yes, so I let Brad know we'd be coming over around 9. I knew Troy would be picking me up from work to take me out to dinner, but he surprised me by coming in early. 

After we ate at Olive Garden, he drove me back to work to pick up my car so we could go to my house and change before going to game night. While I was turning the heat on in my car and getting situated, I looked over at Troy, who was parked next to me, and watched as he gripped the steering wheel while mouthing words. I thought it was a bit strange and it made me laugh. I rolled down my window to ask if he was alright. He said he was, so I thought nothing of it. After I changed clothes, I ran upstairs and frantically ran around trying find some games to bring. My mom asked if I was going to bring a jacket and I told her no because I thought we were going to be inside the whole time. She asked if I was sure and I said yes, unaware that in about half an hour, I would be on the top of a mountain in the freezing, gusting wind. 

We hopped in the car and Troy drove us to Heather and Brad's house. While pulling into their neighborhood, he didn’t see a speed bump coming so I warned him, but instead of pushing the breaks, he pushed the gas! I told him he needed to calm down or I was going to get car sick. Still, though, I didn't really suspecting anything because he had told me the week before that he still didn't have the money to buy a ring. I honesty wasn’t expecting him to propose for a couple more weeks. We pulled up to their house only to find their car wasn’t there and their lights weren’t on. I thought that was really strange and when we knocked on the door, no one answered (as was the plan), but I found this very frustrating. 

Troy called Brad who explained that they'd "gone out to dinner" downtown and the food had taken longer than expected so they wouldn’t be there for another 20 minutes. Troy and I were already 20 minutes late and now we were going to have to wait for another 20 for them to get there?! I expressed to Troy my frustration and told him that was very rude of them. He told me not to get too riled up about it because we had been late too, so we sat back in the car and he suggested we just go on a drive to kill some time and go to a place in Draper where Heather and Brad had taken us a few months before. I agreed. He asked me to help direct him there because he wasn’t sure if he remembered how to get there. What I didn’t know was that just a couple hours earlier, he'd driven up there to make sure he knew how to get there. For a while, I thought we were going to wrong way until I spotted a landmark I recognized. 

We pulled into the lookout point and I wasn’t expecting to get out of the car since it was so blustery and cold and Troy knows how much I hate the wind. As I Ieaned over and laid my head on his arm, I could hear his heart beating unusually fast. That’s when it hit me. I knew he was about to propose! He said he was going to get his jacket out of the trunk and grab a blanket for me. He had me stay in the car so I wouldn’t see him grab the ring as well. I was getting pretty excited at this point. He came and wrapped me in the blanket and took me out to get a better view of the city lights. He went on the explain how this was a central point in our dating life. We had memories in Provo, Salt Lake, Park City and Midway and these were the places where we had fallen in love. As he was talking to me, I heard him accidentally click the ring box. The suspense was building and he finally knelt down and asked me to marry him. I exclaimed, “Of course I’ll marry you!” and wrapped my arms around him before even looking at the ring. After we hugged (and maybe kissed), he asked if I would like to see the ring. I was so excited, I hadn't even looked at the ring yet! It's such a beautiful ring and it represents so much love, devotion and hard work on his part.

I love you Troy James!