Sunday, July 22, 2012, Alex gave me the surprise of my life! Everyone asks me, "Did you see it coming??" Well, if you know me, and you thought I saw it coming, you know I would at least have my phone with me, or a camera, or SOMEthing!! But I didn't. So you know without a shadow of a doubt that Alex actually got to surprise me, which is great, because I was honestly doubting that he'd pull one over on me! ;) The day went a little something like this...
It was Sunday morning and I was running late, as usual. Alex went to early service and Sunday school and I was oooh about 45 minutes late for the late service. {Oops!} I will blame Alex a little bit for this one... he told me {basically on my way out the door} that he was planning a boat ride after lunch, which meant I had to stop what I was doing, grab some lake clothes, and all that fun jazz because I didn't want to go all the way home after church. Church was great, as usual. Our awesome pastor talked about fasting, then "let us out" earlier than normal "to go eat." :) We met up after church for lunch with one of my best friends and her husband, Caroline & Ryan. It was fun to catch up because I hadn't seen Caroline in a long time! And after lunch we headed to the lake to use Alex's aunt & uncle's boat. I knew I had left my phone in my car. I didn't care though- we were just going on a little boat ride. No big deal. {Like we do this all the time or something...}
We spent some time driving the boat, riding around the lake, looking at all the fabulous homes on the lake, talking about how we hope that one day we will have our own home on the lake. It was so nice. Alex drove and I laid up on the fancy new leather seats, telling him I could really take a good nap out there. :) It was such a nice day- only 80something degrees! It wasn't miserably hot at all, which was {also} surprising. Alex parked the boat, and we just kept talking. He talked about wanting to jump in the lake, and joked about throwing me in the lake, even though he knew that even though I had my bathing suit on, I was not getting my hair wet before Bible study later that night. So I thought that's what he was doing- just parking to hop in the lake to cool off. We were in the middle of the lake, hardly any other boats around... just us two. Alex got up and walked to the other side of the boat out of my sight. I was laid up on the seat facing the other way. He asked me to get up and "come here." I'm not gonna lie, I was comfy and didn't want to move, but I did... :)
As soon as I was up and took one step towards him, he got down on one knee!!
And...funny story...I just saw him move fast and thought he was going to try to throw me in the lake, so I immediately got my defense on, and may or may not have almost knocked the ring out of his hand. No joke.
He sat there, on one knee, in the middle of the lake, holding a gorgeous diamond ring in his hand, and said something along the lines of... "You know I love you, right? And I want you to marry me." I think at that point I freaked out, went into shock, and said something like "Are you for real??" He must have said something I don't remember, but then I remember saying "I don't know....no, no, I mean YES!!" Then there was lots of hugs, kisses, smiles, and questions. ;)
I think I sat in shock for the remainder of the time on the boat. He kept telling me how happy I looked, and then later how funny I was acting. I told him I didn't know what to do!! I had never been engaged before, I was in the middle of the lake, with no phone, or no camera! All we had was his phone, which I just had to take some pictures with! ;)
We headed back to his aunt & uncle's house, and they were there, ready with camera in hand!! It was too funny!! We spent the rest of the day visiting family in town and calling and texting our friends and family to share the good news!! Everyone was so surprised, and thank God *I* was surprised!!
Alex did a great job! I don't know anyone else who got engaged in the middle of the lake by themselves on a beautiful summer day!! I am thankful that is OUR proposal story. ♥
