Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Our Engagement

I feel like every girl dreams of the same things: finding that one person that makes your heart pound each time you see them and falling in love with them, getting engaged, and planning a wedding. I would like to say that I’m not the only little girl who fell asleep dreaming about being rescued by prince charming and living happily ever after…maybe I have Disney to blame for that one! When Ben and I started dating and talking about marriage, it really freaked me out at first. Ben was the first boy I ever really, really liked, but in the beginning, I didn’t know that it would be forever. Seriously, what 16 year old girl thinks she is going to marry her first boyfriend??I guess you could say that Ben and I are far from normal, and here we are, high school sweethearts, planning a wedding.

My engagement was a huge surprise, but at the same time not a surprise at all. We had talked quite a bit about getting engaged, so I knew it was coming sooner or later….a lot later, though! Ben is so sneaky…he kept talking about the things he was going to buy for Christmas, how he was so excited to get himself an iPhone, and how he was going to have the perfect amount of money to pay for next semester. Seemed like he had all his money budgeted out perfectly…no ring this semester. I figured it would come in the spring…maybe my birthday.

The final week on November and the first week in December were really crazy for both of us. Thanksgiving break was behind us and school was kicking up once again. I started winter track, and Ben was working pretty much every day. We were caught up in final papers and projects, and had zero time to hang out. We’re together quite a bit, so it was bugging us that we hadn’t had any time to just hang out and chat. Ben decided that we needed a date, so we planned to go out next Wednesday the 7th. There is nothing special about this day…it was just a day that both of us had free to go out. A few weeks ago I had bought a “little black dress” to wear on dates, so we decided to go a little fancier so I could wear my cute new dress…Ben decided to keep the location a surprise.

My sister Katie had a choir concert on December 2, and since I hadn’t seen one yet I decided to drive down to Sioux Center and go to the concert with my mom and brother. My dad had hernia surgery that week and was recovering at home. Ben asked if my dad would be at the concert…which maybe should have gotten me suspicious that he was planning on taking a trip to Yankton to talk to my dad…but I thought nothing of it. I told Ben that my dad was at home recovering, and that was that. I decided to stay the night with Kate at Dordt so I wouldn’t have to drive home when I was sleepy. I guess when I told Ben I was staying overnight he decided to head home to Yankton to ask my dad if he could marry me. In his words, he felt that God was telling him it was the right time.

Ben and I planned on doing Christmas shopping that Saturday and you’d think that a person would act differently after having a chat like that, but Ben was acting completely normal. I had to work at the school library from 2-4 on Sunday, which is when Ben went to the mall and bought a beautiful diamond ring. Working at the library isn’t exactly the most exciting job, especially on a Sunday afternoon, so I kept texting Ben…he was supposed to be working on papers. He kept telling me that he was getting distracted playing video games and that he would get it done eventually….what  a liar. He was buying my engagement ring! I came over right after work and he was still acting normal. Throughout the week he kept freaking out when I would get onto his Facebook…I always log out of his account, I have never read any of his messages, but he always says this when I’m on his account, which is why I wasn’t suspicious at all. He does the same thing if I look in his phone…so I also wasn’t suspicious when he wouldn’t let me see his phone that week. We are just weird this way…we completely trust each other, we just tease a lot. I love how God kind of worked things out for us…if we weren’t so weird about things like Facebook and text messages, I would have totally known.

With all the craziness of final projects and tests, I was so looking forward to our date. I had an early morning pool workout and a treadmill work out that day, so I already felt that I had been up for forever, but time with Ben would be great. I was feeling a little silly in my dress, because I feel that people don’t dress up to go out to eat anymore. I kept asking Ben if the place was nice enough to dress up for…he just laughed and said yes. We always take pictures of our “fancy dates,” so I still wasn’t suspicious of anything. I would have known something was up if he wanted to take pictures of this date when we’d never done that…just another cool thing I feel like God orchestrated.

Dinner was great, completely normal. We went to Foley’s, and no, nothing special about this place. It was just a nice restaurant. We had great conversation; we always have so much fun together. Ben always finds some reason to make fun of me…we did a lot of laughing. We don’t usually do dessert, but when we do, it’s always cheesecake. Ben is SO picky…no chocolate, no mint, no fruit…so cheesecake is kind of a godsend. It’s literally the only dessert we agree on, and I guess Ben decided that today, he wanted cheesecake. The waitress brought out the dessert menus and suggested cheesecake…strange, that’s what we wanted! What a great waitress. She came back in a flash; I was so impressed by this lady! She comes out carrying this huge nine inch cheesecake, and my mouth falls open. I’m thinking “Wow! What a great place! They bring you a whole cheesecake! Man, we’ll have plenty of leftovers!” She sets the whole thing in front of me and tells me “Make sure you read the writing, now.” Everything slows down…like in a movie when they turn on the slow motion. I read the cheesecake, which says “Will you marry me” in mini chocolate chips. Ben gets up from the booth and drops down on one knee and pulls out the ring box. My eyes are huge, my heart is pounding, I am completely in shock. He says “Sara, I love you and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Will you marry me?” I love that Ben didn’t try to come up with some fancy speech that he would have forgotten out of nervousness. He just said what he felt.

For all you hopeless romantics out there, I apologize for not crying. I was just in shock…I did cry later though, so that counts, right? I just said yes, and we kissed, and people clapped. We sat in that booth for a good twenty minutes just looking at the ring and talking about how sneaky Ben is. I barely ate one piece of cheesecake because my stomach was doing flips; I think Ben ate two whole pieces out of nervousness. A table of older gentlemen offered to buy us drinks, which we politely declined. We decided to take a drive down to Falls Park to see the Winter Wonderland Christmas lights. It really was a perfect night. Right now we’re just enjoying being newly engaged…planning won’t start for a while…we just want to enjoy Christmas with our families.

So there you have it. We got engaged J

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