2nd Time's the Charm

I can now officially call myself an engaged man again. I must say it feels good to be able to say that I'm "taken" and that I know there is someone else out there who wants nothing more than to spend the rest of her life with me. This entry is dedicated to the love of my life, Katherine X Howell!

Lots of people (Allison) have been bugging me to get a blog posted about how the proposal happened, so this is here for those of you that just love to here this kind of mushy stuff. If you don't care for the "Awww..." moments, I suggest you leave now!

As some of you may know, my first date with X was to the Jon Schmidt concert last year. I took X again this year and was hoping to propose to her that evening. I wanted to propose to her under the stars out on the QUAD, and every day that week it had been clear skies and the stars were very bright. But lo and behold, the day of the concert it was overcast and rainy. Perfect. So I had to bail on my plans for that evening, but I kept a watchful eye on the weather.

It was a whole 2 weeks until another clear night up here in Logan! X and I had gone to the USU basketball game that evening and when we came out I noticed that the sky was clear. I was pretty excited. We hung out for the rest of the night until about midnight, and then I walked her home. On my way home I texted her and told her I had noticed that the stars were really bright that night, and asked if she wanted to go star-gazing. She gladly accepted and so we started getting all dressed up for the cold.

My first task at hand was finding out where I wanted to keep the ring. I didn't to put it in my pants pocket because it would really bulge out when I sat down, and I didn't want to put it in my coat pocket, because X likes to keep her hands warm in my coat pocket. I ended up deciding to put it in the hood of my hoodie. It was ingenious! It was a nice little pocket for it, it didn't bulge, and there was very little chance that she would reach in there for anything.

We left and drove up to the QUAD and laid out some blankets to look at the stars. We ended up getting to cold sitting on the ground so we decided to stand and do a sort of cuddle-dance as we looked up into the sky. It was at this point that I said my "back was itchy" and reached into my hood to grab the ring box. Of course I made it seem like I was scratching my back so she had no idea. I'm a sneaky one! Then I put my hand behind her back again and we continued to dance/cuddle for a little bit. I was really lucky though, because right after I took the ring box out X offered to put my hood on for me, so I got it out just in time!

After a while X was starting to get tired (I could tell because she was putting her head on my shoulder and I could feel her leaning a lot of her weight into me) so I knew I was going to have to act soon. I told her to look up into the sky and see if she could find any stars that she liked. (***MUSHY ALERT!***) As she was looking up into the sky I told her that I could see a beautiful star. She asked me where, and I told her right in front of me. Then she looked back up into the sky (and I secretly brought my hand out from behind her back) and I told her that I could see a sparkly star. She asked me where again and I directed her gaze down in-between us where I had the ring. She gasped and I got down on one knee and proposed.

The funny thing is that X was more interested in how I managed to do it all rather than answer my proposal. I told her I would tell her everything if she said yes. Now she knows. :)





A special thanks goes out to Andrew Hardman who came out and endured the cold night to take these awesome pictures. Thanks Andrew!