A Valentine's Proposal

Ah, Valentine's Day... a day of love, chocolate, flowers, and mushy cards.  A day where sweethearts all over the country declare their undying love for each other in flowery poetic words.  I love Valentine's Day... even when I was single I loved Valentine's Day, because it was all about love and I knew that someday I would find someone who I could share it with!  This year though, Valentine's carries a lot more meaning for me, because it was last year on Valentine's Day that JC proposed to me. 

 He had made the trip up from Butte, Montana to spend a whole 8 days with me... from February 12th to 20th.  I was so excited to be able to spend that length of time with him!  We would get to celebrate his belated birthday when he got here, and then Valentine's Day, and then my birthday... all within those 8 days. 

Before this visit, we had spent a fair bit of time talking about proposals and marriage.  We both knew we would be getting married some day, and we had even talked about what kind of ring I wanted when the day came for him to propose.  (I asked for a white gold ring with three stones.  I wanted the center stone to be colored and the two outside stones to be diamonds.  I expressly asked for small stones, as I have never been a fan of big jewellery.)  During these conversations, we had talked about how he would be waiting for his tax return in March or April or May and then be thinking about looking for rings.  Of course, he never came out and actually said those words, he just kind of hinted at waiting and I ran with it.  Little did I now that my devious boyfriend already had a ring picked out, an exact match to my request, and that he had brought it with him in February. 

On Sunday afternoon (the 13th), JC went in to have "the talk" with my Dad.  I knew he was in Dad's office talking to him about our plans for the future, but I honestly didn't think it was because he had a ring with him on this trip.  I had so completely bought the idea that he was waiting for several months to buy a ring that I figured he was just asking for Dad's blessing so that next time I visited Montana, he would have the ring and would then propose.  Was I ever wrong!  My beloved boyfriend was downstairs in my Dad's "Man Cave" asking for his blessing to propose to me the next day and showing him the ring he had picked out. 

Well, Valentine's Day came and we enjoyed a nice lazy day together, going for a walk and doing lots of talking and laughing.  We had reservations at Redstone Restaurant in Red Deer for dinner and then we planned to go for a walk around Bower Ponds after dinner.  We thoroughly enjoyed a lovely dinner together, feasting on some absolutely delicious food! It was romantic and I loved it!  As we were finishing our dessert, JC informed me that he had one more gift for me (we had exchanged Valentine's gifts that morning), but that I couldn't open it until we were at Bower Ponds.
My mind raced for a moment.... Was it a ring?!?!?!?  But once again, my brain reassured me that he had not bought a ring yet, and so there was no way the "gift" was a proposal.  I was sure the gift was going to be something like a pretty necklace or a keepsake of some kind. 

We arrived at Bower Ponds and bundled up in warmer jackets and gloves.  It was almost too cold for a walk, but JC was adamant that we go... "Just for a short one".  (I didn't notice, but apparently he had slipped a wrapped package into his jacket as we were leaving the car)  We walked along the path until we got to the bridge over the Ponds.  We stopped there and JC said I could finally open my present.

He handed me a gift wrapped box about 8 inches by 5 inches, and about 2 inches thick.  I was immediately very curious as to what it was. I pulled off the paper and held a brand new boxed Bible in my hands.  I can admit, my immediate thought was "Really?  A Bible?  I know we both love God and we know that someday we'll be serving in ministry together.... but a Bible for Valentine’s Day?"  Within about two seconds though, my brain realized that this was indeed a very cool gift (I love Bibles) and thanked him for it.  He urged me to take it out of the box, so I pulled it out and looked at it.  It was a pretty color, but what caught me was the name inscribed on the bottom corner of the front cover... "Brianna Reagan".  It was at that moment that I finally realized that something was up and I started to freak out…   He told me to look at the dedication page inside the front cover.  I turned there and read the following words:

To my Lovely, Beautiful Bree.
From your Beloved JC.
On February 14th, 2011.
On the Occasion of: 
           WILL YOU MARRY ME?

At this point, he put his arm around me and held out a ring box with a lovely ring inside it.  He said, "I love you so very much. I want to spend the rest of my life with you.  Will you marry me?"  I immediately started crying and nodded and said "YES!"  I turned to him and I got to kiss him for the first time.  (We had both agreed to save our first kiss for engagement, and neither of us had ever kissed anyone else, so it was indeed, a first kiss!) I kept crying and smiling and laughing, and finally yelled at the top of my lungs, "WE'RE GETTING MARRIED!!!"  There were about 3 people skating on the Pond and I'm sure they all heard me.  : )  

JC didn’t know my ring size so he hadn’t been able to properly size the ring before giving it to me, but he had a solution!  When he purchased the ring, he had bought a beautiful silver chain to keep the ring on until we could get it into a jeweller. We slipped the ring onto the chain and he fastened it around my neck so I could keep it close. 

We finally decided to head back to the car since we were both freezing.  Of course, we made quite a few stops to smooch some more…  Once we got back into the warm car we knew we had a couple phone calls to make.  The first was to my best girlfriend, Marie, who I had promised to call first whenever the day came that I had been proposed to.  I got her on the phone and when I said “Hi Marie.  This is Brianna”, my cell crackled and she didn’t hear me.  She asked who was calling and as soon as I said my name again, she burst out with one of her famous “Marie Squeals”.  She said that there was only one reason that I would call her on Valentine’s Day and she asked if I was engaged.  : )  Yup, I assured her I was and she proceeded to scream some more.  She was almost as excited as I was!  Then we called JC’s parents on speakerphone and chatted with them for a few minutes.  They congratulated us and wanted to hear the story of how things went.  It was a lot of fun!  
 
We headed back to Rocky and my family was still up when we got to my house. More congrats followed and more hugs and smiles.  We posed for pictures and I got to show off both my beautiful ring, but also my very unique new Bible.  

I went to sleep that night with a huge smile on my face, knowing that I was going to marry the man of my dreams and being so thankful to have the wonderful guy I now was able to call my fiancé.  The cool thing is, now that we’ve been married for a little over 6 months, I still go to sleep with a huge smile on my face every night… not to mention waking up with one too.