THANK YOU for being so patient with me! (Well…most of you 😉 )
Tyler says he can tell the story in 2 minutes…but we all know that won’t happen with me. I will give you every detail of the engagement! This is a bit long, but tough. If the length of this annoys you, don’t read it… just ask Tyler for the story 😉
I have to start by giving you some pre-engagement background knowledge.
1. Monday was the one year anniversary of when Tyler and I started dating. We’d been friends for a few years, and met out at camp where we worked together 3 out of the soon to be 6 summers I’ve been there. When I moved to Fergus Falls, we got to actually hang out, where as before, we’d mainly communicated through snail mail. (Which I LOVE by the way). SO- a year ago Monday, we’d gone for a walk, then had thrown a football around over at the Hillcrest football field. After that, we walked a bit more and sat down by the river for a good 3 hours. That night we talked about how we were both feeling about what’d been transpiring, and both felt the Lord was leading us to take the next step in our relationship. So on April 20th, 2008 I officially had my first (and last! 🙂 ) boyfriend.
2. Another thing you need to know is a famous line of Tyler’s. Before we started dating, and even when we were newly dating, when we’d get into serious or deep conversations, usually near the end, Tyler would awkwardly pause, then ask, “Any questions?”….To which I always had to try not to laugh because it always sounded SO AWKWARD!… About a month into our dating relationship, when we were more comfortable with each other, we’d been talking. It was nearing the end of the conversation and there it came…”So. Any Questions?” To which I now felt compelled to tell him, “DON’T…. SAY THAT….that’s SO….AWKWARD”. We had a good laugh about it… and since then, it became a joke to which usually my response would be a little slap on his cheek or across his chest, maybe even gut a few times if I was really annoyed.
Okay… now that you have that background info…. and so the story goes…
About 2 weeks before our 1-year, I’d starting asking Tyler what he wanted to do to celebrate… we aren’t really the kind to celebrate each month, we usually acknowledged it, but I figured for our one year, it’d be nice to go do something, especially since it was finally starting to get nice out! When I first brought it up, he said, “I don’t care.. what do you wanna do”… I asked if he wanted to go out or if he wanted to cook something together or what, and didn’t really get a response. I let it go… and the subject never came up again until the night before. He was dropping me off and he goes, “So.. you busy tomorrow night?”… Monday nights have become our date nights, or nights we just hang out, so I looked at him with my eyes saying, “Are you joking? Tyler.. please”. I knew he was kind of just saying that to irk me a little. He said, “Why don’t you let me take care of dinner and bring some warm clothes to change into- would be nice to get outside a little if it’s nice”.
It HAD been nice days leading up to this, and then of course the temperature dropped suddenly. The past couple of months as we’d talked about marriage, we’d talked about how we both liked the fall. With my job at camp, I live at camp all summer, so that was something we had to work around too. I told him that I would be willing to shoot for later Fall, but I (we) would need at least 6 months of planning time. So.. the past month or so I’ve thought of many things… First, I’ve thought of many opportunities that he’s had to make an awesome proposal…but all of those things came and went…with no proposal. I’d started to think, “Okay… the 6 month mark has kind of come and gone. I guess it won’t be happening in the fall.” I had hoped that he’d do it before our one year, or on our one year, but figured that the one year was kind of predictable. If he hadn’t done it by our one year, I was going to sit him down and just tell him that the fall was no longer an option. So when Monday night came, I of course was hoping that it would be “the night”, but was doubting that it would actually happen.
When Tyler gets excited, or nervous, his neck gets red and splotchy. He picked me up for dinner and I was watching for signs. We got to the restaurant, ordered, looked at deer feeding out the window, all seemed pretty calm. He was calmer than calm could be. No redness, No splotches, no fidgeting or anything unusual. He was being completely normal. My heart sank a little and as he disappeared to the salad bar I looked out the window, sighed, and whispered, “not gonna happen….” I was convinced that all signs led to just another night. (Although already wonderful).
After we ate, we went back and changed. The weather was significantly cooler than it had been. I’d been fighting a cold, and had gotten little sleep as my friend Steph had been visiting for the weekend. I was pretty tired, and I hate being cold. I was a little upset that he wasn’t going to propose, and wondered where this would leave us with future plans. The last thing I wanted to do was go out into the cold, cold wind and freeze… but I did. We bundled up and headed over to the Hillcrest football field where we tossed a football for a while. I was miserable, cold, and a little irritated. After a while Tyler said, “c’mon, let’s go sit”. “Go sit??!? Tyler… it’s freezing!” He said, “‘c’mon, it’s not as windy down there”. So I took his hand and he walked me down to sit by the river… where we’d sat a year ago and had talked, prayed over and established our relationship. We sat for a while and chatted a little, but I wasn’t very chatty. He asked me some questions, to try and make the night memorable, like things I’d learned over the year, or what God had been showing me. “haven’t we already done this?” was my reply. I looked at him again annoyed.. because I felt like not even 2 weeks ago, we’d just been talking about that. Poor guy- I was a TOTAL punk that night.
After it was clear to him that I wasn’t really in a talking mood, he threw in his famous line. “Any questions?” I just looked at him and smiled. “You want to go rent a movie or something”, he asked me. In my head I was thinking, “Are you kidding me… we’re going to go rent a movie…. and stare at a black box the rest of the night? What on Earth is he waiting for?” I was tired though, so I kindly said, “Yeah sure, that’s fine”…knowing I’d fall asleep soon after the movie started.
We got up to leave, he gave me a big hug and dropped to his knee. “Sara…. I have one more question for you”. I….was….shocked! I shouldn’t have been, because I’d been waiting and wanting… but there he was… looking up at me… this was really happening! My heart started racing and my mind did too- everything became so surreal that I can’t even remember all he said. I know he told me how much he loved me and how long he’d been waiting and praying for me. He said my name a couple of times to try to get me to calm down… ‘Sara…. will you marry me?’ I asked a whole bunch of questions. I don’t remember the sequence, but I asked, ‘is this for real?’, ‘are you sure?’, and ‘did you ask my dad?’ (stupid, stupid…Sara- just answer the poor guy!) He asked me again, “Sara… will you marry me?” YES, YES! I told him. He didn’t put the ring on my finger, he just got up and hugged me, still holding the box in his hand. He then took the ring and started to put it on my right hand, but he soon realized that wasn’t right.”
He slipped the ring on my finger and it was a perfect fit. It was pretty dark, and I couldn’t really see it, but I already loved it. As he slipped it on my finger, he said, “this is for you! It’s paid in full.” 7 years ago when he had first started dating, he prayed that someday, he would marry, and knew that when that day came, he’d have to have a ring, so he started putting money away. He never wanted to take out a loan for a ring, or make payments, but wanted to give it to the girl he was going to marry having her know that through love, sacrifice, and grace, he was giving it to her with no strings attatched- no money due, it was to be hers- a symbol of commitment and promise. Paid in full.
So that’s the story. You heard it here first! We’re still working through details, but are still thinking fall! Stay tuned as details unfold just like this story has- Through grace and faith alone- because HE is the author, and perfecter. We give all glory to Him! Praise God from whom all Blessings flow…