We’re getting married!

I knew Kaleb would be proposing to me in the month of August, but to add an element of surprise he suggested every Saturday in August we get dressed up, go out on a date, and one of those Saturdays would be the day he proposed. He was very limited on what Saturdays he had available as our schedules were pretty full. For example, the very first Saturday in August we would be at his niece Mayleigh’s first birthday, so I already knew it wouldn’t be happening that day. This year was the first year I had a boyfriend to invite on the Mertz family’s yearly beach vacation. After a week of relaxing, spending time in the sun, and enjoying hanging out with the family Kaleb suggested that we have what he called an “appetizer date” on Friday to kick off our date nights for the month of August since we would be busy on the first Saturday of the month. I began to wonder if he had something more planned for us than just a regular date night. As we got ready to walk out the door of the beach house my niece Presley asked, “Aunt Liz can I go with you?” To which I responded, “not this time but we’ll take lots of pictures for you.” I repeated what she had said to Kaleb who then replied, “she can come with us.” This of course confirmed that he would not be proposing that night. The date, was a private sunset charter with the kindest couple who did sunset charters as a way to spend some time together and share their boat with others. We took our seats and were immediately soaked as the waves splashed up over the edge of the boat and onto us. I laughed finding the unexpected splashing funny as Kaleb silently panicked about the proposal and how we would be drenched by sunset. He also planned to have his drone take a video of us while he proposed and told me the reason he had the drone was because he wanted to get some cool pictures of us on the boat at sunset. As sunset got closer Kaleb started preparing his drone for take off. There were lots of obstacles on the boat so he planned to have it take off from his hand. Kaleb held the drone out over the water, started it up and released it into the air. At that exact same moment a gust of wind blew the drone right into one of the lines on the boat, flipped the drone on its side, and we watched in horror as it plunged into the dark waters. In shock, I looked up at Kaleb who turned from looking at where his drone had just disappeared in the water looked at me and said, “okay, well that’s gone. You want to go sit back down?” We took our seats again on the boat and before sitting down Kaleb asked if I wanted my coffee which I declined. He then went to “grab his coffee” (and the ring) and came back to sit down I looked at where he set his coffee and realized he had grabbed mine. I turned to tell him just that, when he asked if I would stand up, then proceeded to get on one knee profess his love and ask for my hand in marriage to which I immediately accepted! We took the time to celebrate with each other and enjoyed watching our very first sunset as an engaged couple and now we will get to enjoy the sunset together for the rest of our lives.