#TBT The Engagement

May was an incredibly wild month. Mitch graduated, we went to a beautiful wedding, went on a cruise to the Bahamas and – oh yeah – we got engaged!! I was in complete shock. Mitch and I have been dating for over 2 years, so I tend to get questions about when we’re going to get engaged and married, and I always say that it may be within the year, but who knows. I did not expect it to be this soon within the year! So to say I was surprised was a bit of an understatement.

I missed every clue leading up to this momentous moment, and I’m so glad I did. I love surprises, so to know absolutely nothing made the proposal that much better.

I was so excited to be visiting Little Stirrup Cay on the cruise to the Bahamas. I wanted the white sand, the palm trees and the ocean, and to relax the entire day – to truly let the lazy out. I’m not ashamed.

Mitch had been walking around and talking to people throughout the day. I thought he was just being friendly, asking about the island and things. We had been in the ocean – and saw a huge sting ray and a barracuda-looking fish! – had lunch and was relaxing in the cabana when he asked if I wanted to walk around. We went down to the rocks in front of our beach that looked out at the ocean toward our ship, and I stopped because I had seen a sign that said not to climb on the rocks. I was pointing this sign out to Mitch when one of the managers of the beach came up behind me and said “Oh don’t worry about it, it’s fine. We’ll just watch you down there.” Still thought nothing was up.

As we were climbing down, I held out my phone to Mitch – because I had wanted to take pictures once we were safely on flat rock – and asked him to put it in his pocket so I could use both of my hands. He told me he didn’t have one, and I replied “Yes you do. It’s right there on your butt!” He took my phone and held it as I followed him down to the flat rock furthest out in the ocean. Still not a clue.

We finally reached the large flat rock and the view was amazing. There was ocean 180+ degrees around us, and the water was just beautiful. Mitch started talking, telling me he how much he loved me and that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me. Now, normal people would immediately jump to proposal, but we play around a lot about getting engaged – he put a roll of tape on my finger the week before when he “proposed” to me at our apartment. But at this point I thought he was starting to sound really serious. All of a sudden I turned around and he said he wanted me to marry him! He got down on one knee – and my first reaction was “Is this for real? Are you serious?!“and then out came the ring. The beautiful, perfect ring. Oh this is for real.



I was lucky that we were able to have pictures taken of this moment, and for the fabulous surprise from my new fiancé – boy does that sound weird!

I took a couple weeks away from the blog to have a break from writing, to focus on my day job, to actually clean up the apartment from the travel tornado that is our lives – this is still in progress – and to simply pause and enjoy the good things that are happening. Sometimes I need to stop and enjoy the moment in the middle of the rest of life’s chaos so that I can feel like I fully appreciate it.

And sometimes I just need to let my liver regroup and make time for naps on any given day. You’d think 23 was old or something.