Monday, August 24, 2009

The Proposal

As most of you already know, I'm engaged! It's pretty exciting! Christina and I have enjoyed all of the wall posts on Facebook. We will be getting married December 22 in the Seattle Temple. So here's how it went down.

If you already know the background story of Christina and I and just want to hear the proposal, skip this and the next paragraph, but it's a good story. Christina and I have known each other for two years. We lived in the same apartment complex until she moved out this last December. I had never taken her out that entire time, but we were good friends. We stayed in contact a little bit the next few months and saw each other at a few get-togethers. I even called her one evening in May, I believe, to see if she wanted go to a dance with a group of us. The whole group thing fell through and it just would've been me and her, so I called to cancel (I know, what was I thinking). After that I started thinking it would be fun to go on a date with her. But since I had already been accepted into the Jerusalem Center for fall and would be leaving for an internship shortly, I didn't expect anything to happen.

I organized a group to go see Up on it's opening night, May 29. That's the night we both decided we liked each other (but didn't say anything, we hadn't even been out on a date). Then that next day I invited her to volunteer at Special Olympics with me, we also went swimming, and then she came over to catch the last bit of a movie (the movie had just ended and we ended up talking for a while). Anyway, she was very clear that she liked me (hint, girls, that makes it so much easier) and we were dating by the next Friday (a week after Up). We didn't need a DTR (define the relationship, for those who don't know), but that's what day we look to because that was our first kiss. After an amazing three weeks, I was off to my internship in California. She came out to visit me the next week over the 4th of July. We video chatted or talked on the phone every day while I was in California. I had a tough decision to make about going to Jerusalem or staying and getting married in December. After talking to some great friends, praying, fasting, and going to the temple, I knew that I wanted to get married. And even though she would've waited for me, it wouldn't be worth it to be away from her for so long. And the fact that I would come back from Jerusalem broke didn't help. So on July 12th I told her I wasn't going on the study abroad and we decided we wanted to get married (I know, we had to keep it a secret a long time). We saw each other one other time when we went to go meet the parents at the end of July. Although I left out the part in that blog entry of me talking to her dad.


The Proposal

This last Saturday, August 22, Christina went wedding dress shopping (haha) so she could get an idea of what she was looking for when her mom comes to town this week. That gave me plenty of time to finish up my plans for that evening. She thought it might happen soon, but wasn't sure if I had the ring yet. (I had tried to make it seem like it would take a week or two to be ready.) Around 4pm we went to a favorite park of ours in Orem and played some card games (Lost Cities and Ligretto). Then we went out to dinner at Carrabba's. Afterwards we went looking for a dessert to take with us for a walk along the Provo River. She was getting suspicious, because she had suggested going there earlier, but I told her I'd rather go to the other park. We couldn't find any dessert, so we went over to the Provo River trail by Bon Losee off of University Parkway. She had worked nearby during Spring Term, so we had taken a lot of walks there during her work breaks. We talked for a little while on the bridge we usually go to. I thought about doing it there, but the fear of losing the ring to the river by accidentally dropping it was too great. So we walked about 20 feet to a bench. I told her I made her something and pulled out a book I had been working on. In it are all the journal entries I've written about her and the things we've done the last few months, along with pictures of many things we've done.
The last page I wrote a letter to her expressing my feelings for her and read that to her. Then I pulled out the ring. She said yes (or I probably wouldn't be writing this). We're both extremely happy and excited. We haven't been able to take a good picture of the ring yet, but hopefully we will soon. Oh, and the book has a lot of blank pages for the future. (Yes, the book idea does come from the movie Up.)

3 comments:

Shalyse said...

Congratulations! This is such great news for the two of you! I can't wait to hear and see more as the wedding date approaches! Thanks for sharing your story!

Nathan S. said...

Nice Job Jordan! You are such a romantic! I think your proposal was perfect and will make a great story. Everyone told me not to mess it up because that story will be told for the rest of your life! Great work and get thinking about when she should have the bachelor party! After already doing two parties I think we got it figured out and will throw the best party ever.

Meridith Reed said...

What a cute proposal! I love the adventure book idea. :)