The Ring

"Look at the stars,

Look how they shine for you,

And everything you do,

Yeah, they were all yellow."

---Coldplay - Yellow

"So close to reaching that famous happy end,

Almost believing this was not pretend,

And now you’re beside me and look how far we’ve come"

---Jon McLaughlin - So Close

Not to make the title of this post sound like a horror movie, but I know that not everyone has had the opportunity to see the symbol of committment between me and Russ. So here is a photo of the long awaited token.

I'm sure you'd like to read about how the ring was presented to me, so I will try my best to recount all of the details of that night (please know that as I struggle to come up with a great way to turn this post into a little romantic adventure, Russ is sitting behind me spouting off ideas in the form of a 1930's Detective novel narrator).

One by one as people discovered about our recent engagement, I've had to retell this story to each of them. On Wednesday I recited the story of how this all came to pass to a coworker of mine and actually brought a tear to her eye. Russ doesn't realize how romantic and thoughtful he is but that's just another reason why I love him. He doesn't try too hard, he's simply himself. Which just so happens to be everything I've ever wanted or needed in my search for an eternal companion.

Friday, November 21, 2008,

It had been a long day at work, I inadvertantly erased all of the music from my iPod AND iTunes that day, and I was REALLY looking forward to seeing Russ later. So when he finally picked me up from work, seeing Russ made all the stresses of the week evaporate. The fact that my 4GB iPod (aka my crackPod) was now holding nothing but empty space instead of music no longer seemed like such a big deal to me. Since food is essential, we went to his parents house to eat dinner with the rest of his family (I'm super excited to call them my future family!! PS Do you notice how much time I spend at their house and how much of that time I spend eating? Not that I'm complaining, I love their food! ) and went to get ice cream from Ben and Jerry's (my all time favorite brand of ice cream) afterwards. We sat at a table and talked about silly things (as usual) and even though I didn't really suspect anything, I still had an unexplained feeling that this date was not an ordinary one. When we had finished eating our ice cream we drove to a park and went for a little walk, but when we had gone just a little ways down the path. Russ stopped and asked me if I wanted to dance (are you saying "awwww"?) which of course I said yes. So he pulled out his iPhone and played a slow song (which so happened to be the same song we had danced to for the first time as a couple). When the song ended I heard him pop something behind my back, I asked him if he had cracked his knuckles and he said no. But before I could ask what it was he had gotten to one knee, presented me with the ring and asked me if I would be his wife. Before he said the words I was already shouting YES!! inside of my head, however, in all the excitement he must have dropped his phone... Because when we looked down, there was the iPhone lying face down in the gravel. When he picked it up, the screen was cracked! Fortunately it still works. (Funny thing is my iPod went kaput that day and the face of his iPhone now looks like the Phantom of the Opera).

Not sure of what to do next, we were dying to tell everyone, though we knew we should tell our parents first. So since we were closer to the Bybee home, we woke his parents up and made the announcement to them. They congratulated us and shared with us some words of wisdom. Then we drove to my mom's and told her the good news, she was (as expected) very chill about it since she already figured Russ would propose that day after he went to lunch with her and formally asked for her blessing. She of course said yes, she loves Russ to death and has never once had a complaint about him (my mom usually has an opinion about the guys I date), she is extremely happy for the two of us and can't wait for (and I quote) pretty mormon grand babies. Since we had told our parents, we sent out mass texts to everyone to let them know too. Of course the majority of replies read "it's about time" followed by "congrats" and "when's the date" (we're thinking March 13th or 14th).

Russ and I are SO STOKED to finally be here in this stage of life TOGETHER.

We're running late for a BBQ right now (yes a BBQ in winter) otherwise I'd elaborate on how I've always known subconsciously that I'm supposed to be with Russ.

That and Russ is still distracting me with his own 1930's Private Investigator narration of this exciting night.