How We Met
We have a pretty epic story and an ever more amazing Proposal!
Wow, where to start! My partner and I have been dating for almost 7 years. We met in 2011 after knowing many mutual friends for years, but never said 2 words to each other before.
The day those words were finally exchanged, would change the course of my entire life.
We met in 2011, but we had seen each other many times before… We had mutual friends and he worked as a tattoo artist in one of my friends shops. I never got tattooed by him, but I was in the shop all the time getting work from the owner.
I decided to start working for him part time as a receptionist for a second job. The day I started work and we actually got introduced, sparked something that neither one of us was ever expending…
Long after everyone else had gone home for the day, we found ourselves sitting on the counter hours later just chatting. We had no idea where the time had gone!
We woujd spend the next few years trying to figure out how to be together, and after we settled in we both fell, hard. We traveled, took road trips, had many wonderful adventures!
This was something different from moment we met…
Because I could never put it into words, or explain it, I knew it was something extremely rare and special. Over the next few years, I realized I had found my person. My best friend. Someone I simply couldn’t picture my life without.
Through all the beautiful things we would start building together, also came struggles and difficult times we had to push through. When there are children involved with new relationships, things become difficult to navigate at times. Especially when it’s foreign territory, and it was for me.
I had a hard time fitting myself into that dynamic, and struggled to feel secure in step-parent position for a long time. We knew things would never be perfect, we just wanted whatever ended up being right for us.
I knew because of Russell’s past, there was a very good chance he didn’t want to be married again. And I understood why.
But, as a girl born in the 80’s, you’re kinda programmed to move through life with a goal of marriage and kids. I never even knew if that was right for me as I grew up, but it’s always there… always something you think about, plan, dream of…
All the things.
So, as a woman in my 30’s and in a relationship with the man I’ve been in love with since the day we met, I knew this might be a hard thing for me to make peace with…
As I reached a point of release, he found his strength and blew my mind! I really had given up the expectation of ever getting engaged or married and knew in my heart we would still spend our beautiful crazy lives together.
I gave it all back to the universe and tried to find that peace within myself that it was just the pressure of “society” and I didn’t need the title to be happy.
Of corse I still had hopes, but never really thought it would ever be me.
how they asked
Well, something unplanned and totally unexpected happened after we decided to take a vacation that we could barley make happen… Things were stressful at home and I had been through some medical stuff leaving us a bit unsettled from a car accident. We didn’t think taking a vacation was possible, but because of amazing friends on the island, we were able to make it happen. So along with family, we headed to one of my favorite places…
Kailua, Oahu Hawaii.
We have both been to this island, but never together. The beach at Lanikai is my favorite place I’ve yet to visit. There’s a petty amazing hike to the Pillboxes that is even more amazing at sunrise. We decided to plan the hike for the last day we were on the island. We spend the day before on the beach at Lanikai and had a simply beautiful day, full of surprises and turquoise water. I was told Russell needed to go help our friends, that we were staying with, move a couch and we needed to leave the beach. He almost had to pull me out by my hair! Haha, I didn’t want to leave! But we did and went home, he went to help and I stayed back with my friend Stephanie. We all planed on going on the hike the next morning.
So at 5am we got up, got out, the whole family came! We jumped in Pali’s new Tacoma, drove up the road with coffees in hand, and we set out for our hike.
Little did I know, that day would change everything, and be the happiest memory and moment of my life!!
I had no idea he was even thinking about it, and I found out later it was a decision he made just one day before while we were there. He literally decided to do it the day before we left!
Apparently the couch moving was a decoy for him to get the ring, which is a rare and stunning piece of sea glass found on the island. And the color of the water at Lanikai.
As we reached the top, I was taking pictures and he came up behind me and gave me a kiss on the cheek. We have a tradition of finding rocks in all our journeys and taking one home usually… He started whisping a few things to me, one was that we still hadn’t found our rock yet… I said yeah we can look on the beach later, and went back to taking pictures… Thinking nothing of it…
As the sun started to rise he dropped to the ground and I didn’t know what he was doing… I realized he wasn’t bending down, he was on one knee…
I had no idea what was happening until I looked back at our friends and they all had their phones out recording.
Oh the tears! So many tears! It was a miracle I didn’t fall off the Pillbox! All I remember hearing was “will you be my forever” and the rest was a blur. I was a hot mess of emotion for the next 48 hours!
It was stunning. Mind blown. I still can’t stop the tears when I think about it.
My bestie Stephanie that had so graciously opened her house to us, I realized was in on it, opened her backpack and popped a bottle of Veuve to top it off! She carried that thing all the way up the ridge! I had no clue! So much winning!
The rest is history and I’m still up in the clouds!
I really didn’t think it would ever happen, but this is truly and epic love story to top all love stories! The proposal was simply priceless and fairytale like. I really thought I was in a dream!
The most amazing part is at the end of the video when we finally get to tell Russell’s daughter that we got engaged. She had been asking Russell to do it for years, her reaction was priceless and absolutely everything.
We are so over the moon excited!
It was the most beautiful moment…
There’s always hope when you love unconditionally!
We found our happy!
