After an afternoon of painting pottery for each other, we returned to my apartment where we recreated one of our first dates before we were a couple. Justin was making the tomato soup, and I was in charge of the cheese sandwich. He handed me a scrapbook halfway through, which I took and read through. It was sweet and awe- striking going through parts of our relationship as he saw it, in picture form. The little drawings and pops of personality he added made me think of his hands creating something like that with thought and care and the time it must have taken. As I got lost in that, he joined my side and we both looked through it together. Reaching the end, I saw a tab " Pull me" and another envelope with writing. Looking to my side after pulling the tab and accidentally but definitely neglecting to read the envelope, there was a ring. Turning, I saw him on his knee. Im not sure what he was saying or what I was expecting but eventually he said, "will you marry me" and getting lost in the moment of course I said yes.

Back in September of 2025 I began praying about when to propose to Margarita. I came to the idea of proposing with a scrap book I would give to Margarita for our 2-year anniversary. The Scrapbook covered the two years we were together up to that point. Through September to December, I worked on the scrap book. I ordered the ring in October, and it arrived in November. In November I began talking with my mom and Margarita's dad to get their blessings to propose to Margarita in December. Flash forward to December 20th. I was stressed at no point did I believe Margarita would say no, but still figuring out when to ask Margarita and how to do it had me stressed out a little bit. We were also doing this date while she was on call for her job at intel. When I arrived at her apartment, we traded the first of our 2-year anniversary gifts, and afterwards we went to Art Attack to design mugs for one another. All the time I was very lost in thought about when to propose and how to do it, at several points Margarita asked me if I was okay and I told her I was okay just had a lot on my mind and we would talk about it later. After leaving Art Attack Margarita had her evening meetings and I found out she had a Migraine. At this point I was heavily considering not proposing as she may not be in her right mind being tired from her job and having a migraine. As I prayed to God, it just made sense to propose that day. I wanted the proposal to be ours, not in public, not anything over the top, but ours. So, I drove us to her apartment, and we started working on our dinner, tomato soup and grilled cheese. As I was working on the soup I gave the scrap book, with the engagement ring inside on the last decorated page. As I was sautéing the onions and tomato paste Margarita left the kitchen to read the scrap book at the table. I was relying on being near her to know when to kneel for the proposal. I didn't know how much time was left until THE page, so I was slightly panicking hoping the onions would cook faster. I got to the point in making the soup where it had to simmer for 20 minutes. As I went to the table to see where Margarita was at, she had barely begun looking at the start of the 2025-year, praise God for cooking onions quicker. As she is going through the last few pages, I am getting ready to kneel for the proposal. When she gets THE page, which says "what comes next?" with an envelope the engagement ring is inside with a "pull me" string and has Proverb 31:10-31 written in the front. She immediately pulls the ring out, in shock thinking I had at least a minute before she pulled the ring, I drop a knee and try saying something to lead into THE question. Instead, I simply say "will you marry me?" and immediately she says "YES!".