YES, IT'S ME: February 27, 2009

what an awesome day!!!
this is a long story, but it needs to be explained from the beginning.

clay and i have been dating for almost 2 years (in june). so yeah, it's about that time.

A little preface for this whole thing...the night before i had a mock board for school, and it was very stressful, but if that was my real board i would have passed. i didn't do as well as i would've liked, but all i needed was a "P". so after i got home i was ready to relax and forget about the stressful night. later my dad comes in and starts talking to me. he asks what i am doing the next night and i tell him nothing. he asks if my parents and I can go to dinner to celebrate my mock board being over and a post birthday celebration as well since i was in utah. i agreed. He lets me know we're going early, so to be ready.

Friday comes and i am planning on studying most of the day since i have written boards in less than a month. i study for a while and remember i needed to pay my fee for a cap and gown and it's due before the weekend is over and not to mention i need to start getting ready. so i hurry and put some make up on and try and put my hair up where it looks decent. i tell my dad that i need to go run an errand and he's like i thought we were going soon? and he also says, i thought you were going to wear your hair down? it looks a lot nicer when it's down. (since my hair is always up my parents always tell me how nice my hair looks when it's down and that i should do it like that more often). then he says will you please get a little more dressed up and put your hair down since i want it to be a nice dinner. needless to say i was pissed at this point and could care less about going to dinner. i run and pay my cap and gown fee, hurry home, and straighten my hair and put something nicer on. I wait for my parents to get home so we can leave. In the meantime i call clay and complain that my dad is being so rude and i don't even want to go to dinner. clay says he's sorry, but sort of tries to explain my dad's side and im like whatever. he asks if i can call him later since he's driving home from school and it's snowing. i agree.

my dad walks in the door and asks if im ready to go and i tell him i am. he says he wants to look at something in my room and im a little confused so i follow him and then as we get there he looks and says nevermind. im like o..k.. i go to the bathroom closest to the front door and i hear the doorbell ring. i wonder if anyone is going to answer it, someone finally does. by the time i come out of the bathroom they're gone and i dont know who came to the door or anything. i go in the kitchen to wait some more and the doorbell rings again. my dad yells from down the hall if i can answer it so i get up and look out the window as im walking to the door. usually there is a car parked out front and this time there wasn't so i assumed it was one of my brother's friends who walked or rode their bike over to our house. i answer the door expecting a 15-year-old boy and instead i get this guy.

SURPRISE!

Me and my lovely roses

yep, he had roses and was dressed up in a suit and tie. i stood there for about 5 minutes, literally, trying to process the situation. i had no words and clay was just looking at me, laughing. it was pretty awesome! so after the initial surprise he proceeded to tell me that the whole dinner with my parents was a set up and when i called to complain about my dad my parents had just picked him up from the airport and my mom was trying so hard not to laugh out loud. He said that we had reservations for dinner in a little while and he wanted me to be ready and not feel rushed so that's why he asked my parents to make up the whole dinner thing.

We ended up going to this restaurant at Gainey Ranch in Scottsdale. It's the hyatt with the lake and gondola rides. We ate at the Italian restaurant which was delicious, but I think my favorite part was dessert. Creme Brule with a cookie shaped like a gondola filled with delicious berries and a piece of shaved chocolate as the row or whatever it's called on a gondola. YUM! Then we went and rode a gondala. It was my first time ever doing it. We had a really good singer and it was nice. After that Clay was asking me if there was a cool park or something like that where we could go and sit. I told him that all the parks were closed and they were just normal parks, nothing special. So we were trying to think of a place that had some light and a place to sit and since we couldn't think of anything we decided on the Temple grounds. It was cold outside anyway so we stayed in the car and watched a video Clay made for me. He brought his lap top and it was a video with pictures of us throughout our relationship and some of our favorite songs. He knows I LOVE stuff like that and it was really sweet. After the video we decided to get out and walk around the grounds, but while we were watching the video they had closed the gate so we walked in the front of the visitor's center for a little bit and I was getting cold so we headed back to the car and he was being a little funny and I was thinking what is going on?

Dinner at Gainey Ranch

Gondola Ride

Well, we were looking at the temple and he was just trying to keep me warm and then started talking about how much he loved me and then he got down on one knee and proposed. Of course I said yes! It was so surreal. I just saw all the SPARKLES when he opened that box and thought, "wow, that is the most beautiful ring." I couldn't stop looking at it and it fit great and everything! It's so much more than I was expecting, it's perfect.

ENGAGED!

The Rock. The centerstone was Clay's grandma's.

So after the exciting night we went home and I showed my parents, which they already knew it was going to happen, and it all just felt like a dream.