He asked... I said YES!

Some of you have heard our story and some of you have no idea... So here is how we got engaged!

On October 13, Ryan and I left BRIGHT AND EARLY for vacation with his family to the Bahamas! When I say "bright and early" I mean we had a 5:30 flight to catch, which means we were out the door by 3:00 am! haha... But we all were looking forward to getting a little R&R at the beach and his parents had rented a house on the Grand Bahama island at Lucaya Beach. So we definitely had something to look forward to later on that day!

It was our second day there, Sunday, October 14 and we had found this wonderful, little church that we all went to that morning. If I could only explain what this was like, it was an amazing experience actually! This little church of 30 people and only 10 of them were there and that was with the 6 of us included! They were currently meeting at their new building which was not close to being finished but thankfully the overhang outside of the church had a roof on it because the rest of the building hadn't gotten that far! So we sat and had an amazing service... Something I will never forget!

The rest of the day we went exploring a bit... Drove all over the island really... It was such a beautiful night out that night so we all decided to go for a walk on the beach. The house they rented was at a quiet and pretty secluded part of the beach. There was a resort down the way but not many people were there at this time of the year. So about 75% of the time we were the only people on the beach! This night included... After a good walk on the beach looking at the stars his parents decided to go up to the house and grab some towels and a flashlight so we could all sit and look at stars and just be by the ocean.

They came back and were setting up shop down the way so ryan, tammy and aimee and I walked toward them and his mom had "lost" the flashlight. They were goign to retrace their steps to find it and I found it odd that they had only brought down two pretty small towels for 6 people to sit on! haha... They went looking for the flashlight and next thing I know, Ryan and I are just left on the beach. (I'm still clueless at this point)... So Ryan and I are looking for the flashlight by the towels and I see this shell! Keep in mind, it's 11:00 at night and so the only light we are getting is from the moon. "Oh Ryan, I found a really cool shell!" I notice that this particular shell has fishing wire attaced to it and the wire is goiing somewhere else... He comes over to look at it and I say, "Ah... we'll find it tomorrow!" And I threw the shell... I don't even know where I threw it but I just remember thinking.. it's so dark out, he won't be able to see it and we can find it tomorrow if we want. Ryan immediately turns around to look for the shell and steps on a washed up, hard lobster! Which stuck his foot pretty good! I was laughing at this point... He finally finds the shell he was so non-chalantly looking for and starts pulling up the wire that's attached and there is this big black thing on the bottom of it attached! I thought it was a dead fish so I jump back and start telling him to "stop! put it down! put it down ryan!!!" He says no and finally I walk up realizing it's a piece of driftwood attached. He is looking at it really intently and kind of twisting it around and I finally notice something sparkling!

I then realize what is going on and Ryan gets down on one knee and says a bunch of wonderful things that I don't really remember because I was starting to cry and had my hands over my mouth. He had carved "will you marry me" into the piece of driftwood!

So of course, I said yes! And now here we are! Newly engaged and getting married in 8 months! The date is June 6, 2008.... That's a Friday night! We are both really excited about this upcoming year although it will be a busy one filled with a lot of unknowns. We will be getting married up in Charlevoix, MI (4 hours north of detroit) at a place called Castle Farms.

We don't have much done... We know it will be a smaller wedding but it will be a smashing good time! :) The purpose of this blog is to update it with pictures and wedding information that our friends and family will need for the big day! It will give information about Ryan's residency journey too! He graduates from med school on June 1st! We will know where we will be for residency come March, so we may be moving again in June!

I promise the posts to come won't be this long! haha... this was a doozy! This is a documentation of everything for us! As we figure out all kinds of information for the wedding, we will post it here for you all to see!