The Proposal

If there's one thing I've learned in the past few months since getting engaged is that everyone loves a good proposal story, and they're all good!  Personally, and I may be a bit biased, but I think ours tops the cake.  It's not for everyone, as I can tell from the faces of some people when we tell the story, but it's perfectly us.  Just a little backstory for those who don't know, K and I both love to be outside and this manifests itself in the form of soccer, hiking, and running, amongst other things.  We've done many a 5K in our past few years together and have participated in the Great Urban Race 3 years running.  We've never come close to actually winning or even in the top 100.  In fact, the 2nd year, we got to the finish line and the organizers had already packed up and left!  There wasn't even a finish line to cross.  But, even so, we love doing it.  It's basically a big scavenger hunt akin to the Amazing Race.  Teams of 2 receive clues which lead to various places and/or activities throughout the city.  The team has to take pictures and collect clues using only public transportation and your own feet.  I highly recommend it, if anyone is interested! 

So, back to the proposal story.  Last October, K told me that he had a fun-filled, surprise weekend planned for October 29th-31st.  So we left work a little early on the 29th and were walking out to our cars and he stopped me in the loading dock of the chemistry building.  He started talking in rhyme about how we met in the chemistry building and that he was going to leave me for a short period of time but that by the time I was finished going through all the clues he would be glued to my side.  (Love.)  So he handed me my first clue and off he went, leaving me to decipher his rhymes.  The first clue led me back to my apartment where he had an amazing sketch he had done of the two of us, as well as a DVD.  I popped the DVD into my player and, much to my surprise, it was him playing guitar, and singing the next clue.  Man of many talents, indeed.  So this clue brought me back to the site of the "great cat fight" or the "incident" as my mom loves to refer to it.  I'll save that story for a later date but it's probably not what you're thinking. :)  So off I went to the next clue.  There I found a book filled with pictures of us throughout the last few years and the direction of the final clue was hidden amongst bible verses.  I finally figured out where he was waiting and sat in the crazy rush hour Atlanta traffic on my way out to Stone Mountain.  As it turned out, the suitcase that had spilled all over the highway was not involved in the hunt, but provided some interesting scenery nonetheless.

After what felt like an eternity, I finally pulled in to the parking lot at Stone Mountain and started my ascent.  When I made it to "our place" where we always stop to rest and look out over the city, I began to walk the path back through the trees and noticed rose petals strewn all over the path back to our secluded spot.  When I got closer, I saw K, standing there with a goofy smile on his face and I just shook my head at him thinking that he was lucky I was a good enough sport to climb Stone Mountain to get to him!  He made me work for it, that's for sure.  When I got to him, he got down on one knee and began his very well versed speech about starting our lives together and starting our own family.  His grandfather had given him his grandmother's wedding ring to give to me as a symbol of our families joining and us beginning our lives together.  Such an incredibly sweet and loving gesture and I am so blessed to be joining a family that is filled with such love and acceptance.  I know that I'm fortunate that they have always treated me as one of the family and I'm just happy to be making it official!  Still down on one knee, he pulled a rose from behind his back and in the middle of the rose was his grandmother's ring.  I, of course, said yes!  How could I not?  As we walked down the mountain together hand-in-hand, K exclaimed to some random lady, "She said yes!"  I guess he was just a little excited!  So here's a pic of the "before" ring.  I'll explain more about that in a later post, but this is his grandmother's ring in it's original state, on my hand.