We’re Engaged!

It all started one day, way back in the beginning of June… I was visiting Kyle’s family for the week and Kyle’s mom needed to have a ring and necklance inspected at the jewelry store.  Kyle and I drove to the mall and dutifully brought the ring into the store. While in the store, I just started browsing around looking at the different rings. All of a sudden one of the sales ladies ambushed me, “Ohh, you’re looking at engagement rings, would you like to try them on?”

With a mischevious grin I looked at Kyle and said “Yes, that would be great!”

Note that before this we had never talked about actually buying a ring.

So I try on all these different kinds of rings: some Kyle cringes at because they look like costume jewelry, others I look at distastefully because they are too simple.  After about an hour, we happened to find a ring that we both loved. Perfect. Kyle wrote down the name of the ring and we left the store. Buy a ring that day, are you kidding me! Without even talking over a big purchase like this- no way!

So off we went. Our next stop was Macy’s, where I had some clothes shopping to do. Bored of the clothes shopping, Kyle left to go get a cup of coffee.  Ten minutes later I had found the clothes I wanted and Kyle reutrned with coffee in one hand and a radioshack bag in the other. Finished with our shopping for the day we went out to the car.

“Hey, what’s in that radioshack bag?” I asked Kyle as we were pulling out of the parking lot.

“Oh, just a power adapter.” he replied nonchalantly.

“You didn’t buy that ring, right?” I asked.

“No! Definitely not!  You know I wouldn’t do that without talking it over with you first!” He exclaimed.

“Ok, ok, I believe you” I said.

Fast forward to a week later- somewhere at the beginning of our road trip. The topic of that ring comes up.  Kyle teases me saying that he bought it. I then proceed to bet him half the price of the ring  that he did not buy it. So there, in the gas station parking lot, Kyle pulls out the ring.

“No! You can’t propose here! It’s not romantic at all!” I object.

“Don’t worry, I wasn’t going to propose. But I do want my money from this bet now.” Kyle responded.

Now, knowing that Kyle had the ring, I was always suspicious of him. I kept thinking to myself, “When is he going to ask the big question?” Not able to contain my curiousity, I got into the habit of searching his pockets.  In the Badlands, our first national park, I checked Kyle’s pockets, found no ring and decided that we were ready to hike. Returning from our hike Kyle pulled the ring out of his camera bag and asked me to put it away in the car for him. In Rocky Mountain National Park I was more thorough, checking pockets and his camera bag. Returning to the car Kyle pulled the ring out of my  backpack and asked me to put it away. In the rose gardens in British Columbia, I checked all pockets, backpacks and wallets- only to have Kyle pull it out of his shoe when we got back to the car. This went on and on and on. All summer, anytime we were someplace romantic I would wonder and he would bring it along just in case the moment was right.

After we visited Denali National Park I gave up- the moment had never been right all somewhere and it certainly wasn’t going to be right while we were doing our shopping in Anchorage! At one point Kyle had mentioned Christmas, so I mentally prepared myself for waiting another 5 months.

On Wednesday August 5th we flew back into Koyuk. We were quite excited to be home! The next morning, Kyle made me breakfast in bed and brought the ring in with him and formally proposed.  What a surprise! With happy tears in my eyes I said “YES!!!!”

So now we are happily engaged. Our wedding won’t be for quite some time- but now I can watch bridal dress shows guilt free!