Today was a Fairytale…

They met in the most millennial way… Bumble! Some would say it was love at first swipe. Their first date was to a local coffee shop where Isaac taught Alexis the difference between left and right. What was supposed to be a short hour-max date turned into an evening of dining and dashing (yeah right, it was all paid for) throughout the Northland. After that first date, Isaac and Alexis were inseparable. When they were together, they laughed, and talked, and talked, and talked. When they were apart, they made plans for the next time they could see each other and talk even more! Some might even say, they never stop talking! With all this talking, came understanding, planning of futures, encouraging one another and so much laughter. On October 9th, 2021, Isaac asked Alexis to spend forever with him. She, enthusiastically, said yes!

October 9th started out as a pretty normal day. I knew Isaac had a date planned for us that night and I wanted to get a run in before I got ready. It was Eddie’s millionth run with me but it was Vega’s first time on a run with the pack. I was ecstatic because she did so well! She barely pulled on the collar and kept up really well. Feeling accomplished, I remember coming home and telling Isaac of our accomplishments and promptly making cookies. I do remember Isaac asking me if I was going to paint my nails for our date. Although I thought this was odd, I didn’t think much about it and quickly said, “If I have time!” And went about my cooking making. I (of course) lost track of time and was hurried to finish my cookies before our date! It was a really nice October afternoon and I remember wearing a sleeveless romper shorts while Isaac wore jeans and brought a coat with him. I thought it was again odd, but if you know Isaac, you know he goes with the flow! We get to The Ewing and Muriel Kauffman Memorial Garden and were sad to see the garden closed. No matter, we improvised and walked around the garden taking little pictures here and there. We decided to do a little photo shoot next to some mums and I noticed Isaac turning on video mode on his phone. Thinking I was going to zing him really good, I started to say something sassy when all of a sudden Isaac got down onto one knee and asked me to spend my forever with him. You could say that was the moment “Everything Has Changed.” (It’s a Taylor Swift song, because of course).

This was certainly no start to a normal day, week, or month(s) for me. I had started trying to plan this day for a while. By the time the day arrived I had somehow not completely tipped Alexis off to what was going on; I attribute this to my antics of joking with her that we were on a 5 or 10 year plan to engagement. When we got to the garden to walk through, I was crushed to see it was closed, which obviously is a crucial detail I had missed in planning. However, not to be dissuaded, I charged ahead with asking Alexis if she wanted to walk around the park before we went to dinner so we could still stretch our legs. I reached into the backseat of my car to grab the ring from my coat. As I did so I noticed Alexis was watching me like a hawk! There’s no way I could transfer it unnoticed! In actuality, this was probably my heightened state of paranoia at that point, I’d already told her the previous day what time the sun would set and asked her if she was going to paint her nails. Very uncharacteristic of me. So in about 70 degree weather I grabbed my coat and walked on with it. In about 5 minutes as we were walking and talking I knew I needed to call attention to the fact I have my coat with me. “Well I really didn’t need this, *nervous chuckle* it’s really quite warm out here.” Whew, I’d dodged that one. Nothing could have been smoother. Or could it have? Stop it brain, gotta focus on the task at hand: good conversation and not being awkward. Alexis and I settled into our walk and I remember just enjoying our time together talking and laughing. So much laughing as we were just being our goofy selves. As we made our way back to the front I was struck by how beautiful the scenery was outside and I said a mental prayer of thanks to God. I propped up my phone against her purse and we took some photos, trying to still figure out a way to get into my jacket. I finally just went to video on it, not sure how, my hands were trembling at this point. I somehow found the record button, and then fumbled with the ring in the blasted jacket pocket. What felt like an eternity later but was in reality was less then 4 seconds, I checked the video, I turned around to see the shocked face of the beautiful Alexis Barbosa.