re: the proposal.

this is the ring.

this is "the boy".
[i love him.]

this is "the girl".

this is them together. [saturday, before walking to the new little coffee shop in town.]

oh, and this is him and little danny, reading stories saturday afternoon.
epically cute.
[danny is a boy who's part of our family; we've watched him since he was 10mos old and he's 4 now.]
yep.

it was a lovely friday afternoon. friday, april 6 to be exact.

justin was edging one of the walls at gram's with a lovely new golden shade, i was practicing a song on the acoustic guitar that we were going to sing together at church for the two services easter morning.

we drank echinacea tea.
comes with the territory of having throat/congestion issues in this lovely month of april. :P

rach browsed the internet and laughed at us. [because...you know...we're funny. and weird. and we're us.]

he painted.

we sang.
we teased.

we sang some more.
we laughed.

i complained about being hungry.
he told me to be patient.
i told him not to talk to me about being patient.
he gave me a look.
i laughed and gave up.

after a while, i realized we hadn't taken any pictures together yet.
so he came by my side, and i waited for him to stop fidgeting until i took the picture at arm's length.

i looked at the picture we just took.
noticed a strange little box in the corner.
what...the....
i turned to him.
"what...was that?..."
he gave me a quirky, barely-innocent look.
"what was what?"
"...that....thing..."
i looked around for his hand.
"you mean this?"
everything is a blur from this part on.
he spoke. he went down on one knee. he asked me to marry him. i couldn't stop smiling.

of course, later we joked to lyd that i said "no" and "whatever" but he still gave me the ring because he's just so kind and generous. we must've acted really well, because she gave us a shocked, disgusted look and wondered why he still gave it to me. haha.

there was nothing better i could've asked for; paint, laughter, tea, music, sunshine in the windows, my justin, and heck yes i was surprised.

pictures don't do the ring justice; i love everything about it. simple. sweet. freaking stunning in the sunshine. i still kind of can't believe that the talented, awesome, sweet, God-loving friend and boyfriend is now my fiance. i guess it'll seriously sink in when we actually start planning hardcore...or hopefully before that.
i just feel so darn blessed.

there's not a whole lot of people you can really be yourself around and be not only accepted and loved but held dear because of it all. not really, sincerely, truly. you know how it is. i'm blessed that he is one of those people. one of those people who are my heart. one of those people you are just so astonished at God for putting them into your life.

...so yeah.
mhmmm....
my best friend and i; we're now engaged to be married someday in the next 50 years. el oh el. 
as for a date being set, not yet. we'll let you know when we do. ;)
your prayers would be much appreciated, very cherished.

[p.s. i'm eating easter chocolate to comfort myself because i cannot do that friday justice with this post, not ever. :P so i hope you enjoyed it....and i'll be posting sometime about random life stuff again soon. :) because, you know, life is good.]