Sunday, August 31, 2008

Flashback Friday: The Sunday Edition

So I know what most of you are thinking... It's Sunday so why am I doing a flashback Friday post? Well there are 2 reasons. Reason 1: I didn't post on Friday. Reason 2: Today is a special day so it made sense to wait till today to post this story.

Exactly one year ago from today, August 31st, Brad and I got engaged. When we got engaged people encouraged me to write the story down so that people could read it and I wouldn't have to tell the story every time people asked how it happened. I wrote it down, but not somewhere that people could read it so now I will retell the story so you can all smile at how cute my husband is and shake your heads at how dim I am.

Brad and I had decided to get married and had picked out a ring that I loved. Brad decided to check around for prices to make sure that we were getting a good deal. At that time Brad was still living in South Jordan at his parents house and I was up in Logan. School started and Brad told me the very first day that he had purchased the ring. I was kind of confused that he told me he had purchased it and I figured that maybe he wasn't planning a surprise since we had already discussed getting married. He told me that the jeweler was going to take 3 weeks to get the ring sized and ready. I was a little bummed that there would be no romantic surprise but was excited to know that he had purchased the ring. I knew that even if he was planning a surprise that now that I knew it was going to be 3 weeks that I would be so suspicious of everything he wanted to do just in case he was going to give me the ring.

Fast forward to that following Friday. Brad had a job that required him to work on the weekends. We were going home that weekend so he worked late Friday night to finish the job so we could leave Saturday morning. I sat at home Friday while Brad worked and watched TV and ate bonbons. Brad got home and called me at about 10:30 and told me that he had an assignment that he'd forgotten about that he needed to complete before we left town the next morning. He needed to go up to campus and he asked if I wanted to go with him. Even though I was feeling blah from just sitting around I thought it would be nice to get out of the house and be with him so I agreed to go up to campus while he did his homework. He was taking a study skills class and he told me the assignment was for that class. The assignment was to go to a USU landmark and write down all of the things that made that landmark important. It was to be like he was listening to a lecture and taking notes on the important parts. Brad had chosen the Amphitheater on campus as his landmark. I thought this was a silly choice and thought he should write about something like Old Main or the 'A' because those are more well known landmarks but it was his assignment so whatever. We went to the amphitheater and found a plaque that had the date it was built and who donated the money. Brad said he was going to write that down but he wanted to wander around first and "glean" as much important information as he could. The fresh air was finally waking me up and so we went to the stage and we searched in the dark for "important" things for Brad to write in his paper. As we walked around I began to notice how beautiful the amphitheater is. It overlooks the whole valley and it has a great view of the stars. I began to think, "in 2 weeks when my ring is done, Brad should bring me here to propose."

After we sat and talked and looked at the stars we finally went back to the plaque so Brad could write down what it said. He got out a piece of paper and pencil from his backpack. As he was writing he asked me to get a paper with the instructions for the assignment out of his backpack. I unzipped the pocket he told me, and there was no paper inside. There was however, a large wooden box. I was opening the box and saying "What the heck is this?" Before it finally hit me. It was my ring box. I looked at Brad and he just looked at me and laughed. He had made up the whole assignment. He squatted on one knee and asked me to marry him. I pushed him over and began to cry and laugh while I said yes.

In hindsight I realize that of course rings don't take 3 weeks to size and why else would he choose to take me to such a beautiful location. But I'm glad I didn't figure it out because it made the night so much more fun without me stressing out about what was going to happen.

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