Tuesday morning I was fully prepared to drive home to St. George, snuggle up in my bed, and write a nice lengthy blog post about my trip to Belize.
Oh. Did I mention I went to Belize last week?
You think that would be my most exciting news right now.
Annoyingly for you, it is not, and updates on that will have to wait.
Annoyingly for you, it is not, and updates on that will have to wait.
Readers: But wait. Katttiiieeeee. What could be more important to our life right now than hearing about your trips and caring about your well-being as a traveler?
Katie: Well readers, I'm going to be straight with you...I got engaged.
Readers: Engaged??!? But Katie. You have posted nothing on your blog about this. Was this one of those whirlwind, Mormon romances that happened so fast you didn't even have time to call your mother and tell her you're in love with a real man with a capital "M" like any decent and proper Christian girl should do?
Katie: No sillies. I just try very hard to not tell you anything personal about myself in hopes of remaining extremely mysterious and single.
Boy did I fool you all. And me.
Because I did not remain mysterious. Or single.
I remain engaged.
To this guy:
Also, I'm not sure if there is a direct correlation between getting engaged and this but I seem to have forgotten everyone's names recently.
No really. Everyone.
Like...people I have known for years will walk up to me and I somehow draw a blank. This has been incredibly problematic since getting engaged because somehow everyone who I have ever met in my whole life wants to hug me and hear the whole entire story and tell me that my ring looks like a "Katie ring" which is always a compliment I am unsure on how to take.
Do they mean it is my style? Do they mean it is not their style? Do they mean they can see a teeny, tiny carving of my face in the center diamond?
The answer is yet to be determined.
All I know is that getting engaged is a lot like the time I got hit in the face with a melon ball:
My head wouldn't stop spinning once it happened and I have to tell the story so many times I want to just write it in a book and sell it at Barnes and Noble for all interested parties.
(*Luckily getting engaged did not have the same impact on my face as a melonball.)
I figured the next best thing was a blog post.So here goes:
Cj's plan for months has been to go home for Thanksgiving Break (or so he told me.) Seeing as how we hadn't seen each other for the 8 days I was in Belize I was not excited for him to leave again after only two days.
We drove down to St. George together where he dropped me off and headed on his way to California.
In the mean time, I went to dinner at Durangos (a delicious Mexican restaurant) with the sisters and cousins because it is delicious food and I should not have to explain myself.
So there we were, eating away. If you know me, you know that I am a chatty person.
(Clarification: If you don't know me, I am still a chatty person.)
The point is, we stayed there and talked for nearly 2 1/2 hours. When Cj left a few hours earlier I had been somewhat annoyed with him for driving down to California when it was dark, late and he was tired, all by himself.
I just worry, that's all.
So, I made him promise to call me every hour (controlling? no. why?) which he did not do.
I called him when we left the restaurant but he sounded really muffled and distracted and I thought he was in a spot with bad service so I eventually just hung up. (little did I know he was trying to cover for the dogs barking next to him.)
We drove home and walked in my front door.
The next part went something like this:
Weird people in my house. Moving around. Confusion. Cj's little brother Cooper hiding behind the counter. My little brother running in and screaming "where's Katie?!?! I saw her pull up!!!" while he was standing right next to me. Me yelling at Cooper. Everyone telling me to go a different direction.
Quite honestly I think I lost consciousness right around "weird people in my house" because I don't remember any of that, but people say it happened.
With my mind going a million miles an hour Erin took my arm, turned me around, and walked me back out the front door.
At one of the most important and pivotal moments of my life, I turned to Erin, opened my mouth and said:
"Uh...can I take my jacket off?"
She said yes.
We walked around the house, there were lights, there was candles, there was a lit path leading to the most handsome boy I have ever seen wearing the skinny black tie that his favorite girlfriend bought him.
He took my hand.
I had tears comin' outta mah face.
We walked through my gorgeously decorated backyard down the beautifully lit path to a porch swing in the center of it all with a TV set up.
He tried to tell me to sit down. I hesitated.
Shaking, the first thing I remember saying to him was, "I...took my jacket off. For pictures."
He looked at me. "Oh. Okay sweetheart. Thank you." Then he somehow forced my knees to bend and I sat down on the swing and he pushed play.
We watched a movie Cj had made of all my family and some of my best friends saying all the things they loved about me. Every single one brought me to tears.
I would think it was over and then the next person would pop up on the screen and they would come pouring down again which is awful because I pride myself in being a tough girl with a dry faucet when it comes to tears.
I guess if I wasn't coherent enough to move past sentences about my jacket then it was the best I could do.
The movie ended.
"Now its my turn..." it said on the screen.
Cj got down on one knee.
He told me all the things he loved about me and asked me to marry him.
I froze for a second (7 to be exact, we counted on the video.) Luckily this was all on film because my brain had clearly shutdown twenty minutes earlier when we walked into the house.
"Of course!" was all I could come up with.
I think the correct answer was "yes" but I was probably making him nervous at that point so I think he was going to take what he could get.
And then, we kissed. Which is always the best part.
And as if this wasn't all enough, his whole family and some of my best friends had driven down from far, far distances to be there and they, along with all my St. George family and friends came running out to congratulate us.
Then there was toasting, and crying, and cheering, and phone calls, and texts, and giggling like mad, and so much happiness.
Later that night we all sat down to watch the movie that Cj had made for me with everyone.
When the movie was over I looked around me at all the people I love in the room and thought about all the people who I had just talked to on the phone and texted who I love and I accidentally said out loud,
"This is the happiest room I have ever been in!"
They may have thought that was extreme, or cheesy, or really loud (I may have yelled it) but sometimes life is that real. There has to be a time in your life when you are in the happiest room ever and...well...there I was.
The best part?
This guy sitting next to me.
He is a man with a capital M.
Love,
Katie
Readers: Engaged??!? But Katie. You have posted nothing on your blog about this. Was this one of those whirlwind, Mormon romances that happened so fast you didn't even have time to call your mother and tell her you're in love with a real man with a capital "M" like any decent and proper Christian girl should do?
Katie: No sillies. I just try very hard to not tell you anything personal about myself in hopes of remaining extremely mysterious and single.
Boy did I fool you all. And me.
Because I did not remain mysterious. Or single.
I remain engaged.
To this guy:
Funny, self-deprecating joke: He's the one on the right.
Also, I'm not sure if there is a direct correlation between getting engaged and this but I seem to have forgotten everyone's names recently.
No really. Everyone.
Like...people I have known for years will walk up to me and I somehow draw a blank. This has been incredibly problematic since getting engaged because somehow everyone who I have ever met in my whole life wants to hug me and hear the whole entire story and tell me that my ring looks like a "Katie ring" which is always a compliment I am unsure on how to take.
Do they mean it is my style? Do they mean it is not their style? Do they mean they can see a teeny, tiny carving of my face in the center diamond?
The answer is yet to be determined.
All I know is that getting engaged is a lot like the time I got hit in the face with a melon ball:
My head wouldn't stop spinning once it happened and I have to tell the story so many times I want to just write it in a book and sell it at Barnes and Noble for all interested parties.
(*Luckily getting engaged did not have the same impact on my face as a melonball.)
Cj's plan for months has been to go home for Thanksgiving Break (or so he told me.) Seeing as how we hadn't seen each other for the 8 days I was in Belize I was not excited for him to leave again after only two days.
We drove down to St. George together where he dropped me off and headed on his way to California.
In the mean time, I went to dinner at Durangos (a delicious Mexican restaurant) with the sisters and cousins because it is delicious food and I should not have to explain myself.
(Clarification: If you don't know me, I am still a chatty person.)
The point is, we stayed there and talked for nearly 2 1/2 hours. When Cj left a few hours earlier I had been somewhat annoyed with him for driving down to California when it was dark, late and he was tired, all by himself.
I just worry, that's all.
So, I made him promise to call me every hour (controlling? no. why?) which he did not do.
I called him when we left the restaurant but he sounded really muffled and distracted and I thought he was in a spot with bad service so I eventually just hung up. (little did I know he was trying to cover for the dogs barking next to him.)
We drove home and walked in my front door.
The next part went something like this:
Weird people in my house. Moving around. Confusion. Cj's little brother Cooper hiding behind the counter. My little brother running in and screaming "where's Katie?!?! I saw her pull up!!!" while he was standing right next to me. Me yelling at Cooper. Everyone telling me to go a different direction.
Quite honestly I think I lost consciousness right around "weird people in my house" because I don't remember any of that, but people say it happened.
With my mind going a million miles an hour Erin took my arm, turned me around, and walked me back out the front door.
At one of the most important and pivotal moments of my life, I turned to Erin, opened my mouth and said:
"Uh...can I take my jacket off?"
She said yes.
We walked around the house, there were lights, there was candles, there was a lit path leading to the most handsome boy I have ever seen wearing the skinny black tie that his favorite girlfriend bought him.
He took my hand.
I had tears comin' outta mah face.
We walked through my gorgeously decorated backyard down the beautifully lit path to a porch swing in the center of it all with a TV set up.
He tried to tell me to sit down. I hesitated.
Shaking, the first thing I remember saying to him was, "I...took my jacket off. For pictures."
He looked at me. "Oh. Okay sweetheart. Thank you." Then he somehow forced my knees to bend and I sat down on the swing and he pushed play.
We watched a movie Cj had made of all my family and some of my best friends saying all the things they loved about me. Every single one brought me to tears.
I would think it was over and then the next person would pop up on the screen and they would come pouring down again which is awful because I pride myself in being a tough girl with a dry faucet when it comes to tears.
I guess if I wasn't coherent enough to move past sentences about my jacket then it was the best I could do.
The movie ended.
"Now its my turn..." it said on the screen.
Cj got down on one knee.
He told me all the things he loved about me and asked me to marry him.
I froze for a second (7 to be exact, we counted on the video.) Luckily this was all on film because my brain had clearly shutdown twenty minutes earlier when we walked into the house.
"Of course!" was all I could come up with.
I think the correct answer was "yes" but I was probably making him nervous at that point so I think he was going to take what he could get.
And then, we kissed. Which is always the best part.
Then there was toasting, and crying, and cheering, and phone calls, and texts, and giggling like mad, and so much happiness.
Later that night we all sat down to watch the movie that Cj had made for me with everyone.
When the movie was over I looked around me at all the people I love in the room and thought about all the people who I had just talked to on the phone and texted who I love and I accidentally said out loud,
"This is the happiest room I have ever been in!"
They may have thought that was extreme, or cheesy, or really loud (I may have yelled it) but sometimes life is that real. There has to be a time in your life when you are in the happiest room ever and...well...there I was.
The best part?
This guy sitting next to me.
He is a man with a capital M.
Love,
Katie
