Getting Engaged According to Her

Justin and I were on the tail end of 2 weeks of not seeing each other. We had, during the course of the day, debated on whether or not he should skip his class on Friday to come down early so we could have a few more hours together. Just before my class (that goes from 4:30 – 7:15), he’d told me he decided to be wise and go to class. I thought, “boo” but supported him in that decision.

So class ends a little late, around 7:25, and I catch a ride home with a fellow student, Susan. I get home and am getting ready to go to the grocery store when Justin calls. This is unordinary because we never talk before 9 in order to save minutes. So I answer and he says, “Where are you? What are you doing?” I tell him that I’m in the middle of something and ask if I can call him back in a minute (I figured I could call him from the car on my way to the store). He sounds hesitant and tells me that’s fine.

We hang up and I keep getting ready to go to the store. A few minutes later I walked outside of my apartment and started toward the east stairs to go to my car. I heard a whistle from the parking lot on the west but kept walking. When I realized there wasn’t anybody else in my part of the building, I turned to look down the west stairs but didn’t see anybody it could’ve been. I continued down the east stairs and to my car in the underground parking lot. When I arrived – who should be standing there but Justin!

I was so surprised to see him! He seemed a little chilly and nervous and I asked him if he was okay. He assured me that he was, he was just anxious to find and surprise me (apparently when he called me he’d been at my office on campus waiting for me to get out of class). I asked him if he’d like to come with me to the store to get groceries and then make dinner. He said of course, but that first he’d love to just be with me and hug me – two weeks is a long time to not see each other.

We decided to go to Kiwanis Park, a place in Provo that we love going to and have for a while. It’s where Justin first told me he loved me, where we’d go to read books together, to play password during the summer evenings, to stick our feet out the windows of our cars and just talk. We love that place. We get to Kiwanis, and, like we do anytime we’re at the park or anytime we do when we haven’t seen each other for a while (so basically every weekend), we will bask in our love. So we’ll talk about the first time we knew we were really interested in each other or when we first thought there might be long-term potential… We laugh about how we didn’t talk about “us” until a week before I went home to GA when we decided that he needed to come too. Gooey, romantic stuff like that.

After basking in our love for a while, the car’s heat has been on, we’re still in our coats to go to the store, and needless to say the car has gotten pretty toasty. So we decide to go sit on the grass for about 5 minutes, and because it was so cold outside, by the time we’ll be sitting that long we’ll be cooled off and ready to go to the store and make dinner. As we’re heading towards Justin’s trunk to get a blanket, he tells me that he bought us matching Halloween costumes and asks if I’d like to see them. I clapped my hands and said “of course,” and he told me to close my eyes so he could get them out and hold them up. I did. Then he tells me to turn around and close my eyes because he doesn’t trust me not to peek – this is so wise of him because I certainly would’ve peeked.

Justin tells me to turn around – when I do, I see him on one knee with a ring in the ring box. I was so surprised – he has done an amazingly consistent job of convincing me that he wouldn’t be proposing for another month or so. I thought he could be trying to throw me off and figured he would propose sometime in the middle of November, but never did I ever imagine we’d be getting engaged in October!

After I got over my shock came the tears. Justin said “Erin” and then became emotional himself. He told me how much he loves me, that he can’t imagine a happy life without me, and the proceeded to tell me how amazing I am and that he never dreamed such a woman existed, let alone could have loved him. He got to the part where he asked me to marry him, like the smart girl I am, I said yes, and then we embraced and kissed and hugged until we’d regained our composures. Very tender, very emotional, all I ever hoped and dreamed of in a proposal and so, so much more. Justin asked if I wanted to see the ring, to which I definitely said yes to, and then I put it on and have been on cloud nine ever since!

I can’t imagine anything being more perfect. Nothing was missing, nothing could have been taken out; it was perfect. The Atlanta temple has been booked for March 27th – we’ll know for sure if we’re keeping that date once Scott gets his mission call, which should be in the next week or two. We are so excited and thrilled to be officially official!