Sooooo it’s been a couple days, and I’ve been able to process things a bit, although it will take much longer for me to completely wrap my mind around the fact that this is actually my amazing life that I get to live.
8.18.18 My Richie got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. The feeling that shot through my body, was something that I couldn’t even fathom at the point, and still cannot really, no matter how hard I try. Richie and I go on annual float trips with our friends near the end of summer to celebrate each other, as well as the ending to a beautiful summer. This year was nothing different. So we prepared for our float trip, and little did I know, I would be coming home a fiancé! What!!? Richie and I went on vacation last week, for an entire week, with his family. Before we left for vacation, he had an appointment with a jeweler to get ring ideas. He came back from the appointment saying he was able to get a good idea of ideas and prices, but he needed to continue to look to make sure he found the perfect ring!
Turns out Richie had picked out, custom made, and purchased my ring that morning and tried convincing me that it wasn’t as successful as a trip as he would have liked. It worked! I believed every word he said!
So we got back from vacation after a week and headed back home. My ring was complete and ready for pick up, the following week. Richies mom picked up the ring, drove 2 hours (to where Richie and I live) and met Richie for lunch on his lunch break, and gave him the ring. Richie did not want to risk bringing the ring home to our place because he was worried I would either notice something was up, or worse, I would end up finding it! So he trusted his very best friend to hold onto the ring for a couple days!
Richie then asked another one of his best friends (that was found on the float trip with us) if he would ever so kindly drive all the way to where his best friend (who has the ring at the moment) lives, pick up the ring, and take it back home with him, and hold onto it until the float trip that we were planning on going on this upcoming weekend. One friend was going on the float trip with us, and the other friend was not. Since his plan all along was to propose on the float trip, he needed a way to get the ring to the location of the float for the weekend, without himself having to hold onto it because of me possibly finding out!
The great thing about this story is how many helping hands it took in order to pull this entire thing off, successfully, without me having the slightest clue. And everyone who had a part in making this come to life, jumped to helping with absolutely no hesitation. Isn’t that just wonderful?
So, now we’re finally getting to the part of the story that you all have been waiting for: the proposal.
We arrived at the campsite Friday evening and immediately began to set up for a weekend full of fun! Richie’s friend who now had the ring arrived after Richie and I did. By the time everyone finally has shown up and we were done setting up campsite, the sun had went down, so we sat around a fire and enjoyed each other’s company. The next morning we all woke up very early, made breakfast, played a few yard games, and got ready to float down the river all day long! We left for the float around 9:30 am and did a 14 mile long float! I know crazy isn’t it?? It’s no surprise that we were all extremely exhausted after we had completed this 14 hour long float, which ended up taking around 7 or 8 hours! When we all arrived back to our campsite after a very long day, we immediately started dinner. After dinner we all sat around the fire, enjoying each other’s company, and Richie got up and said he has to go use the restroom. Of course, I didn’t think anything of it. He got up and walked down by the river behind our campsite. His friend that had the ring also got up moments later because he knew what was about to happen. Again, I had no idea anything was going on because we all had been sitting for a while, it all seemed very normal to me.
His friend walked down by the river with Richie and to be honest, I didn’t really pick up on anything because I was busy conversing with the others around the fire.
Suddenly I hear “hey flea come here for a second!” (Flea is a nickname Richie has given me near the very beginning of our relationship) I replied with a “no Richie I don’t want to go down there right now” (how horrible does it seem now, that I refused to go down there where he was ?) he then said “no seriously come here for a second I need to show you something!” So I got up and walked down near the water, and him and his friend were both standing with their backs toward me, facing the water. I automatically thought they had found a snake that they wanted to show me (fun fact about me: I am EXTREMELY afraid of snakes) I quickly said “omg is it a snake???” Richie replied, “no Flea it isn’t a snake I promise!” I proceeded to walk a bit closer to where they were and suddenly Richie turned around holding a small box and got down on one knee, and his friend also turned around, recording a video of the entire thing.
I couldn’t believe this was happening, it took a me a while to realize that what was happening, was ACTUALLY happening!
Richie told me that he loved me so much and asked me to spend forever with him, and of course I said YES! A very cute, and thoughtful detail about this proposal was that I didn’t have my finger nails done, nor painted for this float trip. So before the weekend even began, Richie took note of that, and he brought finger nail polish along in his bag and after he proposed, he said “I have one more surprise for you, hold on!” And he brought out the finger nail polish he has brought with him so I could paint my finger nails before we took pictures! ??
This story was absolutely, the most special story, because it hits very close to Richie and I’s hearts, and it was very personal to us and our lives. The fact that he was able to pull of such a beautiful surprise, created the most magical reaction for me, that I could ever even imagine.
Thanks for listening to Richie and l’s beautiful story of how they asked!!?❤️
