a proposal story:

whose story you ask? well you know that surprise weekend trip i mentioned nick was taking me on? here's what happened:

i arrived home thursday night ready to get errands finished during the weekend when he told me "pack a bag, we're going on a trip!" i thought.. a trip? hm. i have a surprise baby shower this weekend, 6 parking tickets i need to take care of, desperately needing to clean my apartment: the last thing on my mind was a trip. but i packed my bag wondering what was going on. he was so secretive. friday morning, he handed me my boarding pass and said "surprise! we're going to seattle!" seattle. my favorite place. mainly because, i love the rain. yes yes, i know some (if not many) of you are thinking "how can you love the rain?? it's so depressing" but i just love it.

goodbye oc.

so here we are. on the plane on our way to seattle! i jokingly asking him "are we getting engaged this weekend?" to which he replied, "no. of course not." haha.

we arrived in seattle. it's not raining, go figure. apparently we just missed the huge storm the night before. but it's still cool to be in the city. it's so urban and artsy. i love it.

we immediately went to the ferrie and purchased the 1:00 ticket to bainbridge. bainbridge? i've never heard of it. where is he taking me? on the ferry, i notice these 2 girls taking photographs of each other. they were really hilarious cause the wind was blowing so hard but they were having so much fun. i kind of glanced at one of them and thought "did they just take our picture?" but i didn't want to be paranoid so i didn't think anything more of it.

we get a taxi and arrive at the bloedel reserve. it's a really beautiful property where you can walk through the forest and gardens. it was so serene and peaceful. and no one was around!

i think i was glad it wasn't raining because it would have been really muddy. ;) actually, it rained before we got on the ferrie and then the sun came out. we both thought if it was rainy and gloomy, maybe it would have been all scary walking through the woods (twilight style!) hehe. so we walked for about 15 minutes..through the bridges and everything. we saw a swan. it was really nice!

so we're walking around and arrive at these steps, with a waterfall. i see the 2 girls from the ferrie! one of the girls, darrah, busts out her acting skills and says "oh we saw you on the ferrie! you know, i hope you don't mind but i kind of took some pictures of you guys.. do you want to see?" -- since at this point i sort of knew what was happening, I said "sure!" instead of thinking "why did this random stranger take pictures of us on the ferrie, creeepy!!" ;) so she starts flipping through some pictures she took and then we come to these 4 images, she flips through them one at a time:

i turn around and nicholas is on one knee with a ring. :) awwwwwwwwwwww.

ps: i think it's funny that he is on one knee and still about as tall as me :)

it all happened so fast and i felt so calm about it, lol. it was so amazing and sweet.

it turns out he had done a bunch of research for photographers and found laurel mcconnell. he wanted to be sure we had memories and have the proposal captured in photos :) he had been emailing laurel for a month figuring out the plan. (she's also blogged about our story here!) darrah and laurel were amazing and so sweet. he wanted to take me to seattle to propose in the rain and have it be really special and memorable.

then laurel and darrah stayed with us for a while longer, having a mini shoot. i was so unprepared but it was so much fun!

since i didn't want a diamond ring, he had no idea what to get me so he made the ring himself in a 3D program he works in for his job and had it made through a rapid pro typing place. the ring turned out to be so thin because he didn't realize the scale he was working in so it actually broke but i loved it... and i'm going to try to glue it back together.

taken by helen at our friends surprise baby shower..
that is a story i will save for another day.

AND he also made a back up ring (the ring i am wearing now) out of a block of wood. he hand carved it and sanded it down himself. it was the sweetest thing ever and i think it was meant to be because it totally fit perfectly as well. (i was very impressed by his craft skills, since he has never taken a woodworking class!) he is totally a crafter at heart i bet ;) we did end up finding this fabulous custom ring shop in seattle: green lake jewelry. so we'll probably just design our rings there. (if you need a custom ring, this is your place!)

so i'm engaged! i couldn't wait to share it with
all you dear blog friends.

now for wedding plans.
i don't even know where to start!

but i think maybe a wedding blog is coming..? ;)