you know you want it

   If you’re anything like the last eight people I’ve talked to on the phone, you’re just dying to know the story of my…ENGAGEMENT!

   That’s right, this little lady is now sporting a lovely diamond on the ol’ ring finger.

   My boyfriend fiancé and I just returned from a fantastic weeklong trip in New York City. It was technically my Christmas present (my very elaborate and over-the-top Christmas present.) Everyone has been asking if I knew I was going to be proposed to on the trip – the answer is no. I had dreamt about it, yes. I had my little fantasies and hopes but I knew it wasn’t going to happen on this trip because Garrett hadn’t talked to my parents. I knew that for a fact. I also knew he wouldn’t ask me before talking to them so I had accepted the fact that it was a no-go.

   On day two of our trip, we remembered that the Empire State Building was in New York! So we hightailed it the seventy billion blocks that afternoon to ascend. But it was hot and there was a line so we mutually agreed to come back later.

   After spending the day touring Liberty Island, Battery Park, and bits of Wall Street, we found ourselves back at the base of the Empire State Building. We He bought some tickets and we waited only about fifteen minutes to get to the observatory on floor 86. There were SO many people up there (if you ask Garrett, he’ll say about 200 people which may be a little bit of an exaggeration…) but quite a few nonetheless. We walked around all four sides, me forcing him to take numerous pictures of us smiling with NYC in the background.

   I noticed he started to act differently after a few minutes of being up there. I’d point at something in the distance and say, “Hey look! It’s that little café by our hotel!” and he’d distractedly smile while looking in the complete opposite direction of my finger and say “yeah!” unenthusiastically. I thought maybe he was actually deathly afraid of heights or maybe was in desperate need of a bathroom but never in a million years did I think he was really having an internal anxiety attack as he was planning his proposal strategy.

   We planned to stay and watch the sun set so we slowly made our way to a good viewpoint against the guard rails. I was up against it and Garrett had an arm on both sides of me as he stood behind me. The sun actually set twice: once behind the thick layer of smog, reappeared for a moment, then set again behind the actual horizon. Ha! We’ve nicknamed it “New York City, where the sun sets twice”.

   Right as the last little sliver of glowing orange light disappeared, I felt Garrett tugging on my hip to turn around. I resisted because I figured he was just trying to get me to go in order to beat the crowd down. He tugged again a little harder and I finally turned around only to realize what was about to happen. I knew right away and my stomach did about 43 flips and my heartbeat increased dramatically. My hands flew up to my face and I just stood there, eyes wide. He pulled a little baggie out of his pocket and got down on his knee, smiling all the while. He reached for my hand, proposed with a brief but perfect speech, waited for me to squeal “YES!”, then slipped it on with ease.

IT WAS PERFECT!

   How many people can say they’ve been proposed to at sunset on top of the Empire State Building? Huh? Not many? That’s what I thought.

   People started to cheer and whistle, clap and say “No way! Is this seriously happening?!” I was doing all those things as well, minus the whistling. (That’d be a little weird.) We headed toward the elevator to descend and I could not stop shaking, smiling, and hugging him. People were congratulating us and saying “God bless!”, it was such a cool moment.

   As we were standing in line for the elevator, I remembered about the whole asking-parents thing and questioned Garrett if he had. Apparently the Monday before we left for our trip, (the day I thought he had spent inside the car dealership to get his financing figured out for his new truck), he had actually woken up at 3:00am, driven the four hours to our hometown, asked my parents for my hand, had breakfast at his dad’s house, visited his mom at work, drove back to his house here, and ALL BEFORE I GOT OFF WORK.

What a sneaky little turd.

   So that is the story of my fairy tale proposal! I can’t wait to start this next chapter in my life with the greatest man in the world.

P.S. In case you missed the story of how we got started...