A Bouquet of Newly Sharpened Pencils: It's Never Too Late To Say: I'm Engaged!

I know, I know. You don't have to tell me twice that this post is WAY overdue. You can call me a bad blogger, a bad fiance, or whatever you want...but, I don't think it's ever too late to bestow on everyone my good news!

The engagement happened on Wednesday, April 27th...and came as a complete surprise! He really made the night sweet and special, all done in true Jeffrey fashion.

I knew he was the one for me, and I knew an engagement would be coming before June..ish. Simply because we had been having those serious conversations, and moving in that direction...and we had even made a few wedding plans! I will talk about this in further detail in future posts to come, but we had in fact already decided on our wedding date. Yes, that's right...we had a wedding date before we were officially engaged. Therefore, by choosing December 18th as the wedding date, I knew it would happen before June...ish because I remember him saying on multiple occassions throughout the 4+ years of our relationship that he wanted me to have at least 6 months to plan the wedding. So bam, I'm a smart girl and I did the math!

Several close family and friends knew about these prior arrangements, so after I moved to San Diego the first of March and wasn't engaged shortly after, I started hearing commentary about it. "When's he going to propose?" "I can't believe he hasn't proposed yet!" "Do you think he'll propose before we come in town and visit you? I hope so!" "When you told me y'all were going out last night I thought that he would propose then..but he didn't! When's he going to do it??" Needless to say, I clearly never knew the answers to their questions...and thankfully, I wasn't as disgruntled about it as they were. I was calm and at peace, and not worried about it or preoccupied by it. However, when the end of April came approaching, and I was still an un-engaged woman, these questions and comments from people started to make me wonder.

Literally, the week before Jeffrey proposed, I remember having a conversation with him saying that I just KNEW when he was going to propose because he was waiting until the last possible second to do it, and I just KNEW when it was happening! I thought I had it all figured out...because he was running out of options. There were only 4 weekends left until June, and one of them I had friends in town, another one his family was in town, another one he was out of town, and the last one I was out of town. Knowing Jeff, I knew he wouldn't want to do it in front of a crowd or audience and that he'd want it to be private and intimate. Therefore, there was limited time and opportunity left and I mentioned that I knew he wouldn't do it on a week night. So I thought I had it all figured out, and was kind of annoyed by it because the both of us always wanted it to be a surprise, so to think that it was no longer a surprise for me made me sad!

Little did I know that he had it already figured out...to happen on that following Wednesday evening! Here's a brief recap of the events that took place. I'm going to spare you some of the details, although I love them, so I can make it a bit quicker:

Asking for my dad's hand in marriage: Monday night, my dad was in town and the 3 of us all met up for dinner upon his arriving flight. Jeff had coordinated it with my dad weeks prior to see if they could meet up before our dinner plans so that he could ask my dad for his permission to marry me. I had no idea, and showed up at the restaurant at the designated time to eat some seafood..and that I did! My dad and Jeff really pulled it off!

Proposal: Jeff and I had already made plans to hang out and have a "date night" on Wednesday, April 27th. I had it all set in my head that I was going to go to his place in downtown that night, and we would take advantage of one of the downtown or gaslamp district "hot spots" for dinner that night...of which I had previously sent him an email about with 5 different dinner options...that of which I never got a response on. Regardless, I was planning on heading to his place after work. So, when Wednesday rolled around...the day ended up being a day filled with lies. Jeff was super cute all day but he had to lie about multiple things, like when he told me he was flying later on that afternoon when in all actuality he flew early that morning. Or, when he was texting me saying his flight was delayed and our hanging out would be pushed back even more and he'd contact me and let me know when he would get done flying. At that point, I was super bummed and had already stayed at work an hour later waiting to hear from him so I could head straight to his place. I expressed my frustration/disappointment to him and he was still so sweet, patient and loving towards me. He kept on saying how excited he was about our date night and to not let these changes ruin things - we would still have fun. I ended up leaving work and going home to just wait for his call. At the time, Jeff was internally concerned that I was going to go home and work out..but he didn't know how to show that without revealing he had a secret. So he just asked "what are you going to do when you get home" and I in my pouting spirit replied "I don't know, I guess sit there" of which he had no response. So what I actually ended up doing was going home and getting into my zone while watching Oprah's "20 Years Younger" episode. Typically, when I come home after work, I "de-cute" myself, and rid myself of all of my jewelry, etc. So, I "de-cuted" myself and I was totally focused and into the show and was literally not thinking about anything other than wanting to research the facial skincare products Dr Lancer was promoting. The next thing I know...my door bell rings. When I got down the stairs and turned the corner, I saw what looked to be like the outline of Jeff's truck through the inside of the closed blinds. I opened the door and saw Jeff, and I'm sure my face showed one reaction: shock. I hugged him and said "what are you doing here"? At that moment..I knew. I knew by the sheer look on his face, what he was there to do. Initially I thought that maybe he had gotten done with his flight earlier and wanted to surprise me and pick me up...but that thought quickly changed as he got down on one knee in my entry way and said lots of sweet loving things and PROPOSED!!

I, of course, said YES and hugged him and didn't even notice the ring! Finally, he ended up putting the ring on me, and we took a quick photo shoot session (done by his roommate Adam who Jeff had recruited to follow him in his own car and pop out from the bushes to document the proposal...Jeff knows me so well and knows how I like my pictures), called family members and headed to dinner where he had made reservations. It was a special time for the two of us, and I loved that it was just us two getting to share and experience it.

Thanks for the special and thought out plan Jeffrey - I love how your goal was to surprise me...and I know how hard that can be sometimes, so kudos for making it work!! I loved the surprise and I loved the outcome of the surprise! :) YOU!

He did so good with the ring too - I knew I wanted something unique and different, yet still tasteful and classy. I had never tried this ring on or anything, but it was something I had mentioned to him in passing and he really took it and ran with it! He searched high and low to track it down...and I'm so glad he did!