I guess it's about time I update this thing on the details of the surprise-laden birthday weekend. The actual birthday ended up being overshadowed just a smidge, but I have decided to be okay with that. It's been nine days since the event, so hopefully I can remember the most important stuff.
We left my house at 5:45 in the morning, 15 minutes ahead of schedule. We weren't far down the road when I was allowed to open my gift, which was a Razorback glass (symbolic, perhaps, of his accepting my Hog-ness) filled with red confetti and ticket to see the musical Wicked. I was super excited because I had been wanting to see the musical for quite some time. I remembered earlier in the week that we had talked a few months back about the musical being in St. Louis on my birthday, so I had a hunch, but I wasn't sure of anything. Once I opened that, I assumed that this was the big surprise that he had been planning, so I resigned myself to the fact that I would not be getting engaged on this particular day. Ryan made a passing remark that before lunch he wanted to go down by the arch and take a picture for my birthday, but I didn't really think anything of it.
So we get to St. Louis and Ryan starts to get a bit nervous, but he told me it was because the Fourth of July parade was shutting down traffic and he didn't want us to be late to lunch. I kept trying to tell him that we had plenty of time, since it was only 10:45 and our lunch reservation wasn't until 12:30, but he really wanted to go take this picture. I start to get only slightly suspicious at this point...
We find a parking spot in a parking garage (for which we should have paid, but it wouldn't take his credit card, so we got off free...sneaky, sneaky), and Ryan immediately grabs my hand and starts walking. I can't imagine how he didn't notice that my hand was shaking, because I think I was really starting to suspect something. Still, though, I was doing a good job of containing myself in case nothing was going to happen. We walked down to the fountain in front of the capitol building in front of the arch (whew!) when he asks the question that convinced me otherwise..."Do you want to sit down?" Why was this boy who was in SUCH a hurry suddenly wanting to sit down and relax by the fountain? It was about to happen!!! We sat down and he said lots of nice things (which I don't remember, but see below...) before saying this:
"Do you remember when we were here in January, and you said I looked like I had a ring? [I say yes or nod or both] Well, I actually have one today."
At that point he pulled a ring out of his pocket (I vividly remember seeing the green box come out of his pocket and covering my mouth), got down on one knee and asked me to marry him!! I said yes about three times and then gave him a hug. He got up and put the ring on my finger, which took a minute because my hand was shaking, and then I kissed him and said yes again. There was a group of people watching us that started to clap, which was pretty cool. I looked at the ring for a while and then we started having random people take pictures of us. At some point I called my mom and then started calling everybody else. Of course no one was surprised except my grandma, but that didn't matter. I was engaged!!
When we got to the car, Ryan gave me another gift. It was a three-part frame with the picture from January on the left, a place for a proposal picture on the right, and in the middle he had written out everything that he said to me before proposing (see above). He's the best!
From there the day became a bit of a blur. We kept calling people until we got to lunch (at the Triumph Grill, which was wonderful but with lacking service) and then again until we went to see Wicked. In the words of a tv show I once watched, it was "Wicked awesome!" Finally we then made it to Kentucky, where we crashed after quite a long day. I kept having to remind myself that it was my birthday...didn't really feel like one this year, but I'd still say it was the best one yet!
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