I said yes.

February 10, 2006. It was on this date that the man who is my husband asked me to be his wife. Four years ago today I received the surprise of a lifetime.

look @ those kids! 10 February 2006

Philip and I made the decision to get married in November 2005. After some time apart (which the Lord used to show us that we were meant to do life together) we "decided" in November and set a wedding date in December. Since setting the wedding date happened before the proposal Philip wanted the formal proposal with the ring to be a surprise. (he knew that it was INCREDIBLY important to have my reception at the Landmark Center in St. Paul and the closest bookings that a person can get are 18 months in --- he had been checking with them and found out the TWO dates still available dates for spring 2007. Melt. My. Heart.) I was scheduled to visit CO over my spring break, so in the back of my mind I was assuming the question would be popped on a romantic walk in the scenic Rockies. Not too shabby.

Boy did he have his work cut out for him.

I was bit of a workaholic maniac in college. I took 20-22 credits each semester and worked about three jobs (whilst participating in theatre) in an attempt to squeeze four years of private school tuition into three. Needless to say my weekends were usually pretty full. On the weekends I was often either working with wedding ceremonies at the chapel on campus and/or judging high school speech tournaments. Philip soon found out that planning a weekend to see me was going to be a bit tricky.

Hist first attempt at making room in my schedule began with one of my best friends, Hannah Pratt (Auch at the time). Hannah was engaged, and the two of them knew that a sure-fire way for me to clear a weekend would be for wedding dress shopping with Hannah (who lived in Montana at the time). I got a call one frosty January evening that left me estatic with joy: Hannah was moving up the date of her wedding and needed to choose her dress. She would come to Minnesota and we would be in wedding planning seventh heaven. I was none the wiser. I remember calling Philip after talking to Philip on the phone after making arrangements with Hannah and absolutely bursting at the seems with excitement. At this poin Philip thought he had done pretty well. . .

UNTIL I decided to have the bright idea of figuring out a way to judge a speech tournament in the morning and spending the afternoon and all day Sunday shopping with Hannah (which Hannah had to work hard to convince me not to book appointments for). Hannah had to call Philip and say, "um. . . I think we have a problem. . ."

Now what?

Philip called my parents and explained the dilemma. My mom then made a valliant over-hand attempt at prying me away from speech for the weekend. She contacted Mounds View High School and asked to be put in touch with the varsity speech coach. In an email she explained that while she may sound absolutely crazy and was a complete stranger, she needed to ask an important favor. She told my speech coach that Philip was going to be coming to propose to me, and requested to have me released from my judging obligations. No problem. I was excused. EXCEPT that when Janelle tried telling me that I wasn't needed at the tournament I would hear nothing of it (this was at practice on Thursday afternoon. . . Philip was coming on Friday. . . The tournament was on Saturday) and announced that I was coming. I figured that as assistant coach it was my perogative to be there and that I had seniority in having the opportunity to judge (I was a poor college student and wanted the money!)

I wasn't budging on my plan. I'd coach in the morning and go on my bridal escapade the rest of the weekend. In life, I usually finagle a way to have my cake and eat it too. . . this weekend would be no exception.

My parents made one more attempt. They asked to come visit. I tried to explain as politely as I could that this weekend really wasn't the best but that we could get together the following Sunday. They announced that they would still plan come on Friday night. Whatever. As long as I could still judge and see Hannah.

At this point no one (not Philip, Hannah, Janelle or my parents) was quite sure exactly how things would work out as I was pulling out all of the stops. . . So they held their breath and Friday came.

On Friday I was working doing TA and research work after my last class in the day. I was sitting in the office working when my cell phone rang. It was Philip. He called to announce that we was going to his buddy Ryan's house and that we probably wouldn't be able to talk the rest of the weekend. I had no problems with this - I was going to be wedding dress shopping!!! - and wished him a weekend full of fun doing guy stuff with his fellow cadets. As soon as I hung up with Philip, my dad called me to explain that he was going to be working late as he had to make a trip to North Dakota but that he and my mom would still be coming later in the evening. Fine with me. I'd work until they got there several hours later. That suited me just fine.

The next thing I know Philip walked through the door of my office carrying a boquet of roses. Philip had called my dad when he was outside of the buidling and announced, "I'm going in." My dad had to call me to keep me on the phone so that Philip could find my voice as he searched for me in a large building he was unfamiliar with. Now, one would probably expect that I would have instantaneously swooned and melted like butter right there in the Mel Johson Media Center when the man of my dreams walked through the door. Nope. My eyes grew wide and I said very sharply, "WHAT are you doing here?" Not "what are you doing here" subtext: I'm so happy to be here. Noooo. . . "What are you doing here" subtext: You really shouldn't be here.

I was so completely shocked. For the first time in my life I had no words. None.

My knees began to buckle below me, and I was starting to get lightheaded. I knew exactly what was happening but was still struggling to comprehend HOW Philip was physically in front of me. He was supposed to be with Ryan. I was spending the weekend with Hannah. My parents were on their way. . . I let him close enough to give me a hug and hand me the flowers. I staggered into Dr. Smith's office and said, "um. . . . I'm going home for the night. . . I think. . ."

We walked onto campus. The February snow was falling softly. Philip had wanted to propose to me in the blackbox theatre (as that is where my heart was and where we had our first dance when he came to visit me our freshman year:) however there was a rehearsal going on that evening, so he made a quick plan B and we went up to the chapel. He played "I don't want to miss a thing" and we danced on the marble floor that was beneath us 18 months later where we made our wedding vows before God and our loved ones. He got down on one knee and asked me to be his wife.

I said yes.

Over the next couple of hours I realized that Hannah was still in Montana and that my parents weren't coming to Minneapolis. It was the first (and possibly the only) night in my life where I was rendered speechless for several hours. Philip prides himself in the accomplishments of managing to genuinely surprise me (I do love to be surprised but am very difficult to surprise as I have a very vivid imagination and tend to wishfully dream up fanciful scenarios before anyone even thinks of or executes them) and leaving me at a loss for words.

One of the funniest parts of the whole story was my ultra-virtuous mother's dramatic response when the ring was finally on my finger: Finally, I can stop living this LIE! Spinning the web that was required to entangle me was nearly more than her conscience could bare (one of the best parts was when my mom was trying to get my roomate's cell phone number from me to warn her of the weekend events. I couldn't figure out why she'd want Destiny's phone number, so my mom said that she was making a list of emergency contact numbers in case someone couldn't reach me on my cell phone. . . )

black box theatre @ northwestern 6 Feb 2010