Who would have thought you could find the man you're supposed to spend the rest of your life with, at a gay bar? "When I saw her I thought she was going to be a fancy woman. Like a mean girl." We started chatting and having a really good conversation and when I excused myself to go to the bathroom the friend he came with had to suddenly leave, so when I came back he was gone. I didn't think much of it because, I for NO REASON thought he was in I.T. Some nerd (not my type), but then when he popped up on 'people I could know' on social media I looked into him and found out he went to school to be a police officer. It was all up hill from there.

I lived in downtown Minneapolis when Ryan came over for our first date. It was around 11am and we were going to go on a bike ride around the cities because he had never really been in the cities before. It started out heading to the Stone Arch Bridge, but before we crossed the river we had to get Izzy's Ice Cream where we both found out or fondness of ice cream. Over the bridge to Tony Jaro's for a greenie, through the north loop, UofM campus, and finished back by my apartment on the lawn bowling roof top of Britt's. It was amazing. 12 hours and 36 miles

Now I should preface this with earlier on the day of my mom and I took my brother ring shopping for his engagement ring for his girlfriend. I told him he had to ask her by October because Ryan was going to most likely ask me in November. My mom said, "You don't know. He could have the ring already and do it soon." I confidently assured her there was no way because I would know. . . boy was I wrong. Our friends Theo and Tessa have a boat they take out on Lake Minnetonka. We made it a habit of going just about every other week, so when they asked us to go out on the boat the day before Girls Weekend it wasn't anything out of the ordinary. Theo and Tessa have fancy cameras and this time they brought them with to "take pictures of the sunset." I didn't think anything of it. Lake Minnetonka is a VERY wavy lake with huge yachts and steam boats and for some reason I thought this was a good day to have Theo learn how to drive a boat. She was so nervous I thought it was because of the waves and her inexperience with boats, but it was because she was so focused on what was to come. Once we reached a calm bay where, "the sunset would be perfect", we turned on my country play list and hung out. As Theo and Tessa were in the back of the boat prepping for the sunset with their cameras the song, "You'll be in my Heart" by Phil Collins came on. Now this wasn't anything out of the ordinary because Ryan and I LOVE all Disney songs and I ESPECIALLY love Phil Collins, so I just thought it was a fluke. As I turned Ryan put out his hand to dance with me, again, nothing out of the ordinary because we do that often. We swayed just a couple times and then he suddenly got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. Theo and Tessa immediately snapped to action. I WAS COMPLETELY SHOCKED! It was romantic and I was taken completely by surprise.