Hi! As most, if not all of you know, Dave asked me to marry him!! I wanted to share the story with those of you who haven’t had the chance to hear it yet. I have play phone tag with lots of people!! Everyone, including me, knew he would ask me any day, it was just a matter of timing. It was getting hard for me to be patient, because I knew he was going to ask me, and I was just so ready to be engaged to the man I am so in love with!
A few weeks before, he asked me what I was doing Memorial Day. I didn’t have plans yet–especially without him, so he told me to save the day, that he had something he wanted to do with me. A few days before, he told me he was really excited about that Monday because he was taking me to a place he had always wanted to go since he was a little boy.
Dave had gone camping Sunday night about an hour and a half away from where we live. Around 11am Monday, it started storming, and we weren’t sure we would be able to go out to this place he wanted to take me. We decided to chance it around 2:30p and head out. I still wasn’t sure where we were going, but knew it would be outside and that I needed tennis shoes. After being in the car for about 15 minutes, he asked me if I wanted to know where we were headed, to which I said, “This is your thing Dave, if you want to tell me, you can.” So he told me we were headed to Starved Rock state park. I had never been. When I realized we were going to be hiking, I noticed Dave had on jeans and a long sleeved shirt. So we stopped at a Walmart so he could get a pair of athletic shorts.
After finding the State Park, we decided we wanted to eat before we headed on a hike. We found this hole in the wall restaurant that was in the smallest time I have ever been to…Utica, IL. When you walked in though, it had a beautiful dinning room where we had some amazing burgers! After that we bought some bug spray at the corner store and headed out.
After we were walking about 5 minutes, I realized my camera battery had died on me. Bummer man! Soooo, we took it back to the car and realized we had forgot the bug spray. Oops! We walked around for a while looking at the sites. Dave kept affectionately telling me how much he loved me–which is not an uncommon thing. At one point it started to rain a little on us, so we danced around in it as other people headed to their cars. We finally reached a lookout spot over the Illinois River called Lover’s Leap (how appropriate). There was no one else around. Dave had brought speakers and his ipod in his backpack, which I knew he had. He told me we should dance and asked what music we should dance to. I said, “I don’t know, Michael Buble is always a good choice.” He started fumbling around in his bag, and I got up from the bench we were sitting at and headed over to the look out. Once I got to the railing, I got real anxious all of a sudden. I starting praying the Lord would calm me down…the last thing I wanted was to be acting weird, or to get my hopes up. I was certain he wasn’t going to ask me that night! When I calmed myself down enough, I turned around to find Dave on his knee!! My eyes went immediately to the ring he had in his hand and I gasped in shock at the site of it! He was saying something I didn’t hear and I said something I don’t remember as I turned my head a bit is pure shock! By the time I turned my head back around, he was standing in front of me. I kissed him, and he asked me if I would marry him, to which I said YES YES YES! Then kissed him again 🙂 We were both trembling as he put the ring on my finger. We danced and talked about the close calls of me almost finding the ring in the last week he had had it. We headed out and got some ice cream along the way, then stopped to see the sun set. I was able to charge my camera in Dave’s car, so we got a few pictures before the night was over.
When we got back to my house, we celebrated with the family I am living with! What a good and memorable night! Priceless….and something I will never forget. I am so excited to be planning to marry my best friend and the love of my life. Not to mention someone I respect more than anyone I have ever met, and someone I never thought would even consider me as more than a sister. God is good to me. I am so thankful! Enjoy the pictures!!
