We're getting married!

One Sunday, he came up to me after church, introduced himself, and wondered if we could help each other with a small group and a youth project each was trying to launch at the time. "Um, YES!" was my immediate (and somewhat flustered!) reply. Thus began a year-long partnership putting together lessons and tackling projects. Well... "planning chats" turned into hours (and hours and hours) -long conversations about everything from dogs to favorite music to doctrinal beliefs to life dreams. We started dating a year after that first introduction! Jesus is so incredibly abundant!

He was coming to pick me up at my house because we had been dating for a year to the day and it was time for a celebratory dinner! Yep, the heels were fine, because though we were going to take a quick walk before dinner it was not going to be a hike. Perfect - let's go! Well, (after I redirected us after getting lost on the way to this untold walking destination) we arrived and starting meandering down the quiet, ocean-front road. We had been there before so it was not odd that we were walking here, except when he pulled me onto the ocean rocks (um, I thought this was not going to be hiking, but no big deal). I quickly forgot that, though, in light of the beautiful vista of open ocean before us. We were talking about how it was on this same spot that we had talked about the future and life and sacrifice for love. It wasn't even weird that he gave me a letter right then. He had done this before and it is our one year of dating, after all. I read the letter quickly. It was filled with his love and respect for me, and still I was totally clueless (I mean, isn't this what happens on anniversaries??). He had written at the end that he had one more thing to tell me out loud. Okay, so I turn to look up at him with a questioning smile, thinking he was just going to repeat what was said in the letter. He began talking about how he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me and pursue Jesus' adventure for us together, and the whole time all I'm thinking of saying to him half jokingly, "is this a pre-proposal speech because isn't there supposed to some down-on-one-knee and ring action going on here...??" Well, I didn't (thankfully!) have a chance to say all that before he spun me around (for that AMAZING proposal shot) and he was down on one knee asking me to marry him. After a couple seconds of stunned silence (or like 10 minutes, depending on who you ask haha), I said yes. And the rest is history!