The Story Of Us: Getting Engaged

This is the third installment of my "The Story of Us" series.

Click here for Part 1: The Beginning
Click here for Part 2: Dating

So, John finally returned from his second year of treeplanting.

He continued to complain about the lack of funds he made that summer and questioned how we could ever afford to get married.

I was feeling slightly confused and frustrated. We had already been dating for 3 years. How much longer could we possibly date?

Now John has this way of manipulating my thinking so that he can get me to suggest something, that in fact was really his idea in the first place. This is how it was 1 week after he arrived home.

John had a plan, but he didn't want to suggest anything so he got me to suggest it instead. It still drives me crazy how he can do that to me without me even being aware of it!!

So, "I" suggested that we should go for a trip to Beaver Creek and have a picnic one day when I finished work. John liked the idea (I would hope so, since it was his idea afterall!!) and agreed that he would pack a picnic for the two of us. He suggested that I should just pack a change of clothes to work, and that way I wouldn't have to go home first.

This is how our wonderful evening began. John picked me up from work and we drove out of town towards our destination. I don't even remember what he packed for food. I have it all written down somewhere in our wedding album, but I can't seem to find which box it is in right now. He put a lot of effort into planning a wonderful meal that we could eat on a hill overlooking the beautiful river. We were off the beaten path and totally secluded from everyone else. Well, everyone else except for the bugs. The bugs were everywhere. On the blanket, on the food containers, in our drinks, etc. It was literally driving John crazy!

I blame treeplanting for John's psychotic obsession with killing bugs, especially mosquitoes. He literally will stop everything else and track bugs into the wee hours of the night because he can hear that lone bug from just about anywhere! My description really cannot do justice to his psychotic "episodes".

During our bug-infested picnic, John was getting increasingly "agitated". I couldn't understand why he was getting so worked up over some bugs. I can't say that I'm a big fan of bugs either, but I thought that his reaction was a little a lot over the top! He wouldn't seem to calm down and it just didn't really make sense to me.

We finally decided to pack up and head somewhere that wouldn't have so many bugs. I was leaning over and cleaning up something and when I turned around, I noticed that John was suspiciously searching for something in his backpack. I was curious but tried not to focus on whatever he was doing so I continued to clean up. When it was all put away, John turned around and had the ring box in his hand.

John got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. I literally jumped into his arms and pushed him down on the ground. The ring box fell out of John's hands and the ring fell out of the box. (Keep in mind that we were picnic-ing on a hill that overlooked the river.) This was a moment that could have gone very very wrong, but fortunately we located the ring and I promptly put it on my finger.

For the remainder of the evening I had a HUGE smile plastered all over my face! I literally could not stop smiling! He had me convinced that we weren't going to get married any time soon, and it totally blew me away with that tactic.

Later on we drove back to my mom's place (my place too) and she was anxiously waiting to hear the good news! I guess John had asked her for my hand in marriage earlier on in the day, which is why he didn't want me to go home after work in case she gave something away.

I'm sure I have missed some details, as this happened 10 years ago this week. I have it all written down and saved somewhere in my wedding album, but I can't seem to locate it right now! But this is the story that I can recall.