Our Engagement

Sticking with the theme of using this a historical family journal of sorts, we are moving from how we met--to our engagement. This was a very tricky time in our relationship because of several factors. Those of you who know us well know that convincing someone to go out on a date with me (Chris) more than once was tricky enough, let alone convincing someone to marry and spend the rest of their life with me. Not only was this an obstacle, but to compound this issue, Andrea takes years to make the tiniest of decisions, like what cell phone plan to choose (this took two-weeks). So when choosing someone to marry, you can understand how difficult of a decision this was for her to make. Lucky for me, I had my wicked-awesome body to throw into the package which I think is ultimately what sealed the deal, and as I already mentioned I didn't really care what Andrea was like, I was hooked from the time I saw her (for other obvious reasons--"curves").

All joking aside, we both took the matter very seriously, and because of her situation (2 children to take care of), I didn't want to lead her along. So the first couple months were spent feeling out if this could work between us. I think from the very beginning we both liked and respected each other, but how do you ever really know that it's right. I knew I was attracted to her, and I knew in time she could learn to be attracted to me, but how can you make a decision of this magnitude with four peoples futures on the line?

We both being spiritual people, sought spiritual confirmation. Very early in the process I got my witness and knew that this was the right thing to do. I was "all in." Andrea took a little longer...she prayed and read her scriptures and was unable to come to any difinitive conclusions. She then met with her Bishop at the time and he said that everyone receives their answers in different ways. He said that "her answer was going to come from the bishop, and that she should marry him." This oddly enough did the trick, she felt immediatly at ease, and she never looked back...even when she found out the exact dollar amount I had in my bank account (not pretty-but also not in the negative).

I always envisioned my engagement as being a surprise to my future wife. I'm huge on surprises. I love to surprise people...Andrea does not. She has to know every little detail or she won't be settled or satisfied. This made my desire for a surprise very complicated. We went and looked at rings for hours. This process lasted a couple of weeks. Andrea wanted to pick out exactly what she wanted. I on the other hand wanted it to be a surprise, so we spent a lot of time looking so that I would have a good enough idea of what she wanted. When the process was complete I informed her thatI had bought the ring and that the engagement band was going to be made by a neighbor of my Grandmother's and that he told me it would be at least a week before it would be completed. I informed her that I would probably ask her to marry me sometime after that, when I felt comfortable. This gave me the one week window I needed to surprise her.

On Friday the 25th of January, 2005, Andrea and I were going out on a date. I asked her if she could help my sister Breanne out by being a waiter with me at our house for her dinner-dance date. My sister had a date for a girls-choice dance and she had one of our second cousins who was a chef prepare a meal for her group of friends and their dates. She wasn't super excited, but at the time she was actually in love with me so she enjoyed being around me. This was actually a pretty good hypothesis for this theory because it did sound kinda boring.

We started the night as waiters, and we served and cleaned up after my sister and her friends. When this part of our date finally ended, we were both pooped, my cousin offered us each a plate of the meal he had prepared, I said we could take it downstairs and eat and then go pick up the kids from the babysitters. She agreed, as we started down the stairs, I stopped her and explained that because she had been a good sport and accompanied on this date, even though it wasn't that exciting I had bought her a small gift. I warned her "it's not a ring, and it's nothing great, but I do want you to know how I feel about you." We went downstairs and in the center of the family room I had set up a round table. On the table was a huge flower arrangement that my Aunt Lori had picked out for me, and a photo album, with the temple on it. I explained that, "I know I can't ask you to marry me yet, because the ring was not done, but I did want her to know how I feel about her." She opened the album and in it were some pictures that my Aunt Lori had taken. Also, there was a metal bookmark, with a long ribbon attached to it. She pulled on the ribbon which went all the way down to the floor on the other side of the table. When she got to the end, she found the ring attached. The look on her face was priceless, and I felt satisfied with the way my surpise had been pulled off. I got down on my knee and asked her to marry me, she immediatly said "yes"and I read a letter that I had written to her.