10 of 52: Flashback May 1997

It was 12 years ago that we became engaged. So I thought I would post this picture (taken from our wedding scrapbook)for this weeks challenge.* I laugh now as I look at this silhouette picture of us. When someone suggested we display it on our guest book table at our wedding, I turned a little pink, thinking of people seeing us being "kissy" and all. I believe I turned several shades of red when we actually kissed in front of all those people at our wedding! Now after 12 years of being "kissy" with my husband and 3 kids, it doesn't bother me much anymore.
Anyway...

Here is the story of our engagement in order to record it for memory failure in our later years...

We met at Bible Study in November of 1995 after he moved to this area, accepting his first job after college. I was going to the local community college at the time. We began dating a couple months later. After one and a half years of dating, talking on the phone every day and seeing each other nearly every day, I began to wonder if he was ever going to ask me to marry him. We talked about getting married a few times but that's about as far as it would go. When people asked me where I was headed after I finished school at the community college, I would say "I'll probably go on to school in Idaho (my parents were living there at he time) or to the U of M and get my degree in accounting." Despite all my childhood ambitions to become a teacher, a pilot, a horse trainer, and on and on, there is one ambition that weighed out all of the rest. It was the ambition to be a wife and a mother. And I knew this was the man I wanted to be a wife too.

As the weeks sped by and the day of my graduation loomed closer, I realized that I really needed to make my plans for the next year. I began looking at colleges and half heartedly packing up my stuff from the place were I lived, in order to move in with my parents for the summer. The weeks of year-end-projects and finals and the spring busyness kept me going and it was with much delight that I looked forward to spending a quiet evening with my boyfriend at one of our favorite restaurants on Friday night. It was a little chinese place and we quietly talked about our week but avoided any discussions of future days.

All too soon, the waiter brought our fortune cookies on a little tray. We each took our cookie, broke it open and exchanged our slips of paper so the other could read it. It was a little ritual we had adopted whenever we ate at a place that handed out fortune cookies. I took the slip of paper he handed me and opened it up and read it. It said "Will you marry me?" I looked up at him in alarm as if to say, "do you know that this says?!"... and he was smiling. I said "are you serious?"... and he nodded his head. So I said "yes...of course!..."

I have no idea what the other fortune cookie said. Maybe something like, "take time for the things that really matter most", or "you will see many of those you love in a few months", or "your plans are about to change for the better". They did change for the better. I did move to my parents for the summer and spent my days getting ready for our wedding that was scheduled for the end of August. I never did go on to more college, but I can still say "it was for the better." Good fortune was smiling down on us that day.

Hosted By Forever in Blue Jeans

*52 Weeks is a year long challenge for YOU to be in a picture once a week for 52 weeks. We are always the ones behind the camera, this is YOUR chance to get out in front and be in the pictures with our family. We are glad you are joining this challenge. More importantly your family will really enjoy having you in the picture. Thanks for playing along! Oh, you can just jump in now with 1 of 52, you're not getting off that easy! Now go take a picture!