This is Brad.
Isn't he cute? (He's on the left...obviously.) We have been together for just over 2 years, and before that we were friends for 2 years (2 years and 6 months, if you want to be exact). And before that we knew each other in Sunday School. When we were 5, but neither of us remember. But my mom was our Sunday School teacher and she says she has memories of us (with our younger siblings) sitting together at a table sharing crayons.
On New Year's Eve, he asked me to marry him. And then he handed me a box with a pretty little piece of jewelry in it... how could I say no?
He'd planned it all out. Propose, in the snow, and drink champagne, under the Blue Moon.
Here's the whole story:
On Thursday (New Year's Eve), I had to work. He had told me a day before that I needed to get off work early, and he'd pick me up outside of my office building at 2:30. To my knowledge, we didn't have plans for New Year's Eve, we were invited to spend the weekend at a friend's cabin, but there was a wedding we were supposed to go to on New Year's Day, so the plan was to go to the wedding, and then head up to the cabin right after. He'd told me that he'd pick me up early from work, and then we'd drive down to Puyallup where I would drop him off at the bachelor party, and then go wait for him at my house. I was annoyed. First because I didn't know why I needed to get off early to go drop him off at a party, and second, because I'd already packed a massive bag with my weekend gear (including bulky snow clothes), and dropped it off with him so that I wouldn't have to lug it with me to work on New Year's Eve. Why would I need to pack the huge bag, if I was just going home anyway? I whined. And then I got 3 phone calls at my desk. One from my mother, and one from each sister. All of them telling me to stop being a brat and just do what Brad said. I whined some more, and went along with it.
On Thursday, at 2:30pm, I headed downstairs to await my knight in shining Protege. He picked me up, and we drove in the opposite direction of where he said we were going. He said he'd forgotten something at his house, and we needed to go back for it. As we pulled off the highway onto an exit not going to his house, I was sure we were going to the cabin early. We met some friends at their house, and we all drove into the mountains together in a car crammed full of food and snow gear.
At 11:15, that night, Brad asked me if I wanted to go for a walk. We got all dressed up in our winter wear, and started toward the door. He had to go back for his jacket. After I was outside, he had to go back for his gloves. I waited on the front step. The cabin sits upon a large chunk of land, with a field, barn, and old chicken coop, just behind the house. We hiked through the 2 feet of snow on the ground out to the field, and sat in the big open space looking up at the glimpses of full moon through the clouds. It was snowing.
Brad started to tell me why the full moon that night was also called a Blue Moon, and when I started to add in details and telling him I'd read all about it online, he shushed me and told me to stop interrupting. He gave a little speech about how the Blue Moon is special and rare, and so am I. When he pulled the little box out of his pocket, I started to cry. And he asked me to marry him. I nodded.
Then he pulled a special bottle of champagne out of the sleeve of his coat (not sure how I didn't notice that), and two little glasses out of his pockets. He'd bought the bottle of Champagne when he was in South Africa during college, and had been saving it for a special occasion. We sat for a few minutes outside, and then went back to the house where everyone was waiting with cheers, congratulations, and more champagne.
A few minutes later and it was 2010.
