We're Getting Married!

We met how so many people meet these days - online on Coffee Meets Bagel. He swiped right for my outdoorsiness and I swiped right for his Clark Kent good looks - just kidding, kinda. We met up at a coffee shop near the arboretum for our first date and walked and talked for over three hours! He was leaving for Europe for a month in only a couple of weeks but we both felt like there could be something here and so we set the intention of seeing where things went we he got back. We never stopped talking through his whole trip and the postcards from he sent still hang on our refrigerator.

Seattle is not generally a snowy place and we usually only get one big storm a year. The 2021 storm happened to fall on Valentine's Day weekend. We had planned to go for a ruck (basically a walk with a weighted backpack) which had been our bonding time during the pandemic when we would regularly go for hours each weekend. It was still snowing on Valentine's Day and already there was like a foot of snow on the ground. Now for all you midwesterners out there who think that is nothing, that is basically the apocalypse in Seattle and roads were shut down and grocery store shelves cleaned out. We didn't let that deter us though, and still hiked from our house up to St. Edwards State Park, with a short stop for a snowball fight along the way. We walked down to the water and had our chilly picnic lunch when Ryan announced he wanted to give me my Valentine's Day present. In my mind, I was like you brought it with you? Okay. He had me close my eyes and put a box in my hands. When I saw it I knew exactly what is was, a glassy baby - my favorite candle holders. Each one is hand blown in Seattle and each color has a name. I opened the box to see what this one was called and inside was the ring. He got down on one knee and asked if I'd marry him and obviously I said yes. Our hands were so cold that we couldn't get the ring to slide over my knuckle and Ryan immediately said "you said yes no take backs!" After many hugs and kisses, he looked at me and said "I have a confession - I really wish we didn't have to walk home right now." We had a good laugh and ended up calling a friend to come take us home where we got to sit by the fire and call our family and friends and share our joyous news.