The Proposal

I thought the best way to start out this blog was to tell the story of how Dan proposed to me. But, that's not the beginning of our story. I'll back track, middle track, and speed to the present. Mostly this blog is so we can remember what happened and when because it all went so fast! So, let's begin.

A few weeks ago Dan and I went shopping for rings. I found a couple that I liked but wanted to show my mom what she thought because let's face it, guys don't care what ring you get. I needed another female opinion. So, the friday after Thanksgiving I took my mom to go see the ring I really wanted. She saw it and fell in love with it too. That settled that, and I knew it was definitely the ring for me. I texted Dan (He was in Arizona supposedly until Sunday evening celebrating Thanksgiving with his family) about the ring, the size I wanted, and even that is was on sale until Monday. Well, Dan called me on Monday afternoon and told me the ring was sold. He promised we would go ring shopping when we traveled up to Salt Lake for the Mormon Tabernacle Concert, but I was still devastated. I had found the ring I wanted, and it was gone. I didn't want to go looking for another one.

Now, we'll fast forward two weeks to December 11th. Dan had just finished classes and we prepared ourselves for the drive up to Salt Lake. The drive was beautiful, clear, and went by fast. I was not expecting a proposal at all because I thought he didn't have the ring. (The little liar.) We met up with my parents at PF Changs to eat some wonderful chinese food before the concert. But for some reason, Dan was acting weird. He wasn't talking, and he would periodically stare off into space. I was a little bit bugged because I thought something was bothering him that he wouldn't tell me about. We had planned this weekend to have fun and be with my family, so I couldn't understand what would be making him so quiet and contemplative. (Stupid girl, I had no clue what was going on in his head...) I tried to make jokes, tried to make him laugh, but it just wasn't having the same effect it usually did. I could not get him to relax. We had some time after dinner before the concert started, so we decided to walk around temple square to see the lights. Once again, Dan wouldn't talk to me and made sure I didn't get too close to him. (Ya, that's right. He didn't want me to feel the ring box in his pocket...gee!) Being the little sensitive girl I was, I started to feel a little frustrated. Here's some pictures I got off my mom's camera of Temple Square.

Doesn't my Dad look so happy?!

This one just cracks me up...

This is my favorite.

After walking around on Temple Square for awhile, we decided to head to the Conference Center. As we were going through the metal detectors, Dan set one of them off when he passed through. I on the other hand, went through just fine. I thought it was kinda weird he made the machine go off. We got separated since I went to go find my parents while he went through another metal detector. (I found out later that the metal detector went off because of the ring. He went over to one of the security guys and told him he had an engagement ring in his pocket. The guy made him take it out and show it. Luckily, I didn't really see that part. All I knew was that he was being held up.) So after Dan finally gets the all clear from security, we head to our seats. I could tell he was even more bugged than he was before. He claimed the metal detector went off because of his crappy CTR ring. I told him it wasn't a big deal and not to be so angry about having to go through a couple of times. He still seemed really bugged. (He thought I had seen the ring and blown the whole night.)

Halfway through the concert I think something snapped in both of us. We realized that we were both being dumb and started to relax. We even started to have a little laugh fest during the concert. (How embarrassing!) To this day I don't know what we were laughing about, but we couldn't stop laughing. After that, things got better. The concert finished and my parents decided to go home while Dan and I decided to walk around temple square some more. He, for some odd reason, wanted to go to the assembly building, but to our luck, it was closed. (By this point, I think Dan was ready just to give up.) Then he remembered something about a big Christmas tree in front of the Capitol building.

We drove up to the capitol only to find a normal house-sized tree with no "big" describing words about it. (Once again, Dan was just ready to give up. Poor guy.) He asked if we could walk around for a bit. We got out of the car, walked along a little trail to this monument thing and then Daniel said, "So I think I know why the metal detectors went off..." and proceeded to take a black box out of his pocket. At this point I knew EXACTLY what was going on. I started freaking out, and made my glasses fall from my face to the cement as I frantically tried to get my gloves off as he started to kneel down on one knee.

"Amie..." He started, but because my "freaking out" was so loud he decided to let me calm down for a minute before he finished with my full name and asked, "Will you marry me?" I squealed, got him off his knee and gave him a big hug, while calling him a son-of-a-gun (I should have censored my language...) for lying to me about not having the ring. (He actually got home from Arizona on Saturday, bought the ring, then lied to me about coming home on Sunday AND about the ring being sold the next day.) I said "Yes" and I made him put the beautiful sparkling ring on my hand right then and there. (I knew I loved that ring!!!) It was pretty fantastic. He made a phone call to his parents shortly after, and I told mine when we got back to my sisters. It's been heavenly being engaged ever since!

And that's the proposal story. :)