Here it is! The whole story:
Shane and I have spent our entire relationship taking turns making the 2 hour drive back and forth to each other's resident cities, with Shane being extra sacrificial and making the 5 hours drive back to my Parents' farm in Storm Lake.
Our weekends are typically scheduled MONTHS out and filled with MULTIPLE things. Which, for the weekend Shane had our engagement in mind, it was technically his turn to come to Des Moines and we didn't even really have that much of plans. Shane just told me there were some hiking trails he wanted to show me with some geocaches along the way.
I had a particularly AWFUL week between work and some other things and had cried basically every day that week. I was exhausted, I was emotionally spent and was easily convinced that a 2 hour drive with Des Moines in my rear view mirror would be worth it either way. By the time Friday rolled around, I didn't much care that we basically had no plans.
My sweet sister, Pearl, and her gracious husband have been my sweet hosts when I come into town to visit Shane. On this particular weekend, they were out of town but still allowed me to sleep in their basement and make myself at home. I arrived to their home around 7pm and Shane had prepared a candle-lit dinner which he had made himself and presented me a box of chocolates as a "sorry you had a rough week" thing. I briefly thought "THIS MIGHT BE THE NIGHT AND I"M TOTALLY NOT DRESSED CUTE FOR IT." But we just had an easy conversation and he easily made me laugh and the rough week was soon forgotten. After dinner we sat by the fireplace and talked a little about our summer plans and future plans and at 10pm, Shane said goodnight and I went to sleep and he locked the door on his way out.
Shane showed back up at 7:30 and we helped ourselves to Pearl and Jeff's espresso machine and sat by their fireplace while we tried to wake up a little better. (I guess Shane had gotten up at 6am but I had no idea). It was a cold and cloudy morning and I would have been content to just spend the morning by the fire with our coffee. BUT, Shane kept insisting we aughta go on a hike and work up an appetite for lunch, and the geocaches would be a fun adventure. He made me breakfast while I stuck in my contacts and put a little makeup on my face. Honestly... it was one of those mornings that the last thing I wanted to do was attempt to look cute or go out in public. BUT, my little sister had recently told me that I was probably at a point in my relationship with Shane where it wouldn't hurt to try and look a little bit nice all the time.. just in case.
I noticed Shane didn't want any breakfast.. which isn't completely unusual, but a little odd since he's been more into eating breakfast lately. I wasn't aware of how cold the weekend was supposed to be and had only brought along a light, peacoat.. which was hardly appropriate for hiking in 36F weather. BUT, off we went and when we arrived at the bottom of this wooded, hill area I was convinced in my mind that we weren't getting engaged since Shane was acting completely relaxed and casual and we were.. hiking.
We got out of the car and I immediately almost froze to death and questioned Shane if we were actually going to be doing this when it's this cold. He said, "uhm.... well, if it really is too cold we can go back to Peff's if you like." (We combine Pearl and Jeff and just say 'Peff) I had no idea he'd gotten up at 6am to set up his little proposal spot and he gambled quite a bit offering to turn back before we got going, but! I'm a determined kinda girl, and we'd driven all the way out to the hiking spot, I decided we may as well.. as long as we got walking real fast to warm up.
We use and app on Shane's phone to find our geocache location and he was the one navigating when we got ourselves into the woods. He kept making weird turns that weren't very direct towards the closest cache and when he decided to skip one that was 20 feet off the path I thought he was being a little ridiculous so I took his phone and decided to lead the way myself. And he found it first.
In my mind I didn't think it was fair the Shane usually always finds the things first and thus I kept his phone and was determined to find the NEXT one first. Shane kept trying to tell me that getting on the path would be way more efficient and we'd get there a lot faster, but, it was way more direct to just plow through the sticks and fallen logs and not use the path.
What a patient man, guys. He let me plow through the bush, down into ravines, up onto hill crests, over 3 fences and up a tree to find this other geocache that was some 300 yards off of his target location. Fortunately for him he had taken back his phone along the way, before his friend Taylor texted him to ask if he'd proposed yet.
After finding the second geocache and getting my hair stuck in the branches of a tree and being completely numb and frozen from over an hour of hiking through this Indian Burial Mound forest, Shane was able to convince me to get back on the path and finish up the day.
We rounded a bend while coming down the path and there was a wooden overlook and I noticed immediately that there were roses set up on it. My initial thought was that someone was supposed to be getting engaged there and we were about to crash it.
I hesitated and told Shane we aughta go a different way so as not to interrupt the happy couple that were supposed to be getting engaged.
He just looked at me with a twinkle in his eye and suggested we take a closer look.
And I realized it was us.
I was in complete shock as Shane led me out to the middle this dock where he had set up roses in the shape of a heart with roses on every post and lining the walk way. He had me step into the giant heart with him and told me that the last 8 months of dating had been the best of his life and he would be very honored if I would spend the rest of my life with him. And he got down on one knee and presented a beautiful wooden box.. that he claims he opened right away, but in my memory I just remember there was writing on the wooden box.
BUT, I was more focused on his face and giving him a hug and the ring part was completely forgotten. I do remember him showing it to me and thinking it was beautiful and saying "yes" and being so completely shocked and feeling like the world had stopped moving and that I was suddenly the smallest creature on earth.
At some point Shane slipped the beautiful ring onto my finger and then we gathered the roses and took our freezing cold, numb and shaking selves down the hill to the car and started calling all of our friends and family.
And that's literally how we spent the rest of the day. Sitting in front of the fire place calling people, telling the story over and over. Between his 6 siblings and their spouses and my 9 siblings and their spouses and all of our grandparents and friends.. it took hours. And before we knew it, it was time to make some strawberry shortcake to take over to his parent's for supper.
I would say it was one of the most magical moments of our relationship, but there have been a lot of magical moments. More than we can count.
Our weekends are typically scheduled MONTHS out and filled with MULTIPLE things. Which, for the weekend Shane had our engagement in mind, it was technically his turn to come to Des Moines and we didn't even really have that much of plans. Shane just told me there were some hiking trails he wanted to show me with some geocaches along the way.
I had a particularly AWFUL week between work and some other things and had cried basically every day that week. I was exhausted, I was emotionally spent and was easily convinced that a 2 hour drive with Des Moines in my rear view mirror would be worth it either way. By the time Friday rolled around, I didn't much care that we basically had no plans.
My sweet sister, Pearl, and her gracious husband have been my sweet hosts when I come into town to visit Shane. On this particular weekend, they were out of town but still allowed me to sleep in their basement and make myself at home. I arrived to their home around 7pm and Shane had prepared a candle-lit dinner which he had made himself and presented me a box of chocolates as a "sorry you had a rough week" thing. I briefly thought "THIS MIGHT BE THE NIGHT AND I"M TOTALLY NOT DRESSED CUTE FOR IT." But we just had an easy conversation and he easily made me laugh and the rough week was soon forgotten. After dinner we sat by the fireplace and talked a little about our summer plans and future plans and at 10pm, Shane said goodnight and I went to sleep and he locked the door on his way out.
Shane showed back up at 7:30 and we helped ourselves to Pearl and Jeff's espresso machine and sat by their fireplace while we tried to wake up a little better. (I guess Shane had gotten up at 6am but I had no idea). It was a cold and cloudy morning and I would have been content to just spend the morning by the fire with our coffee. BUT, Shane kept insisting we aughta go on a hike and work up an appetite for lunch, and the geocaches would be a fun adventure. He made me breakfast while I stuck in my contacts and put a little makeup on my face. Honestly... it was one of those mornings that the last thing I wanted to do was attempt to look cute or go out in public. BUT, my little sister had recently told me that I was probably at a point in my relationship with Shane where it wouldn't hurt to try and look a little bit nice all the time.. just in case.
I noticed Shane didn't want any breakfast.. which isn't completely unusual, but a little odd since he's been more into eating breakfast lately. I wasn't aware of how cold the weekend was supposed to be and had only brought along a light, peacoat.. which was hardly appropriate for hiking in 36F weather. BUT, off we went and when we arrived at the bottom of this wooded, hill area I was convinced in my mind that we weren't getting engaged since Shane was acting completely relaxed and casual and we were.. hiking.
We got out of the car and I immediately almost froze to death and questioned Shane if we were actually going to be doing this when it's this cold. He said, "uhm.... well, if it really is too cold we can go back to Peff's if you like." (We combine Pearl and Jeff and just say 'Peff) I had no idea he'd gotten up at 6am to set up his little proposal spot and he gambled quite a bit offering to turn back before we got going, but! I'm a determined kinda girl, and we'd driven all the way out to the hiking spot, I decided we may as well.. as long as we got walking real fast to warm up.
We use and app on Shane's phone to find our geocache location and he was the one navigating when we got ourselves into the woods. He kept making weird turns that weren't very direct towards the closest cache and when he decided to skip one that was 20 feet off the path I thought he was being a little ridiculous so I took his phone and decided to lead the way myself. And he found it first.
In my mind I didn't think it was fair the Shane usually always finds the things first and thus I kept his phone and was determined to find the NEXT one first. Shane kept trying to tell me that getting on the path would be way more efficient and we'd get there a lot faster, but, it was way more direct to just plow through the sticks and fallen logs and not use the path.
What a patient man, guys. He let me plow through the bush, down into ravines, up onto hill crests, over 3 fences and up a tree to find this other geocache that was some 300 yards off of his target location. Fortunately for him he had taken back his phone along the way, before his friend Taylor texted him to ask if he'd proposed yet.
After finding the second geocache and getting my hair stuck in the branches of a tree and being completely numb and frozen from over an hour of hiking through this Indian Burial Mound forest, Shane was able to convince me to get back on the path and finish up the day.
We rounded a bend while coming down the path and there was a wooden overlook and I noticed immediately that there were roses set up on it. My initial thought was that someone was supposed to be getting engaged there and we were about to crash it.
I hesitated and told Shane we aughta go a different way so as not to interrupt the happy couple that were supposed to be getting engaged.
He just looked at me with a twinkle in his eye and suggested we take a closer look.
And I realized it was us.
I was in complete shock as Shane led me out to the middle this dock where he had set up roses in the shape of a heart with roses on every post and lining the walk way. He had me step into the giant heart with him and told me that the last 8 months of dating had been the best of his life and he would be very honored if I would spend the rest of my life with him. And he got down on one knee and presented a beautiful wooden box.. that he claims he opened right away, but in my memory I just remember there was writing on the wooden box.
BUT, I was more focused on his face and giving him a hug and the ring part was completely forgotten. I do remember him showing it to me and thinking it was beautiful and saying "yes" and being so completely shocked and feeling like the world had stopped moving and that I was suddenly the smallest creature on earth.
At some point Shane slipped the beautiful ring onto my finger and then we gathered the roses and took our freezing cold, numb and shaking selves down the hill to the car and started calling all of our friends and family.
And that's literally how we spent the rest of the day. Sitting in front of the fire place calling people, telling the story over and over. Between his 6 siblings and their spouses and my 9 siblings and their spouses and all of our grandparents and friends.. it took hours. And before we knew it, it was time to make some strawberry shortcake to take over to his parent's for supper.
I would say it was one of the most magical moments of our relationship, but there have been a lot of magical moments. More than we can count.
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