Our Engagement Story - My version of it, anyway

I got engaged this last weekend to Hayley!  We'll be getting married in October.

Here are the details.  Since a lot of people ask for them, I'm assuming you'll want to know what happened too.  On Friday afternoon, I left work early to go ring shopping with my dad.  I ended up finding one that I thought she would like, and that I liked.  It's really beautiful.  On Friday night we went to Chandler's house for his birthday.  Because we walked there, we got to walk back to my house.  As we sat and talked on the way home, I realized that I could get engaged the next morning.  I already had the ring, and we were planning on going to the temple in the morning to do initiatories.  It was almost too perfect.

Where it almost happened

So Saturday morning, I got up at 6:30 a.m., found a smaller ring box that would fit in my pocket, and headed off to the temple.  I don't think I've had a more nervous time doing initiatories in my entire life.  After we were both finished, I suggested we walk around the back of the temple, which was something that we had done before on a Sunday afternoon.  There were a lot of people there, and combined with how nervous I was getting, I just couldn't propose there.

We decided to get back in the car and head first to her apartment for her to change, and then to my house for me to change, and then to Tucanos for lunch.  As soon as we got into the car, I began the process of racking my brain for a somewhat romantic way to propose.

On our way to my house, I suddenly turned right onto 900 East.  She asked where we were going.  I was hoping her texting would have kept her from knowing where we were going.  I simply replied, "Don't worry about it."  In my mind, I knew that she knew and there was no turning back now.

The actual ring, in real life!

We ended up at an elementary school, where we had swung on the swings many times.  She loves swinging and there aren't any swings closer to my house.  She sat in the swing and I got to push her.  She normally doesn't let me, but I got to push her for a long time.  As I was pushing her, I reached into my pocket, pulled the ring out of the box, and just held it in my hand.  I think that's the point where I started shaking.  I slowly stopped her swinging, asked her if she really loved me, and then, following a positive response to the previous question, asked if she would marry me.

I liked it, so I put a ring on it

I don't think she was expecting me to have a ring yet, based on her reaction to the question I asked.  It was as if I had asked it multiple times before.  To be fair, I probably had asked many times, though never officially.  And then I put the ring that I had been hiding in my hand on her finger.  Then I got the reaction I had been expecting.  And these have been the best 5 days of my life so far, and I'm looking forward to many more wonderful days with her.