8/28/2008
The Proposal
I guess I should start by saying that we had talked about getting married, and I had shown Skyler the ring I LOVED, but that was all that had happened and all that I knew at this point.
It was Saturday June 14th. Skyler had asked me to come over and watch a movie at his place later that evening, so I got all dolled up (and it's a good thing I did) and headed over to his apartment. Skyler wanted to watch a more romantic movie that night and I wasn't having it! haha So I chose Night At The Museum (how romantic, right?). After the movie was over, Skyler wanted to walk to the canal that we always walked to together and play pooh sticks (my favorite game to play at the canal). For those of you who don't know what pooh sticks is....you both pick a good stick, throw both of them into the water at the same time, and run to the other side of the bridge and see whose stick floats out first, first stick out wins! Anyway, it was around 11:30 at night, curfew is at 12:00 am and the canal is pretty far away (like across town). Skeptical that we would actually be back by curfew, I was a little hesitant. Halfway there, we decided we had better pick up our pace and run. When we finally got to the canal, we hunted for our perfect sticks. While I was on the bridge pouring the contents of a glow stick on my twig, Skyler was under the bridge making noises looking for his stick. I was thinking why in the world did he need to go under the bridge to find a stick. Then I heard some splashing, but I thought nothing of it. After he came back up with his "perfect stick," I noticed his shoes were soggy and I jokingly asked, "did you fall in looking for a stick?" He told me yes but I thought he was kidding. We poured the glow stick over his stick and we were finally ready to play. We dropped our sticks off the bridge and I ran to the other side to wait for them to come out (I didn't see this but Skyler cut something loose from the bridge). As I'm looking down in the water I see this GIANT LIT UP SIGN that said.... WILL YOU MARRY ME?
I yelled OH MY GOODNESS turned to Skyler and there he was down on one knee, he said a bunch of super cute things asking me to marry him, and then I of course said YES! He put the ring on my finger and I ask him what it looked like because it was too dark to see.
So he pulled out this mini flashlight and shined it on my ring (he was pretty much prepared for anything).
I also asked him if we could keep the sign (as it's floating away) but we were going to be late getting home so we had to leave and didn't have time to fish it out. So we left it floating down the canal, wondering where it would end up. He had his car parked close, so we didn't have to run home. A few days later we walked back to the canal to find this silly handwritten sign...Oops! I guess that was probably our fault (Too bad it looks like it was written by a 5 year old, nice one guys).
* * * * * * *
Now back to the reason why Skyler was under the bridge "looking for his perfect stick." The sign was anchored to the bridge with fishing line, and was floating directly under the bridge, so I couldn’t see it. He had wired the lights on the sign to a light switch and then ran a string for the switch to the bank, so he planned on just flipping the switch and the lights would turn on. Unfortunately, the string got all tangled up in the several hours between our date and when he set everything up. Because of this, he couldn’t get the switch to flip to the on position and he had to wade in to get the sign to light up.
(Skyler took this picture after everything was all set up. If you look closely, you can see the wiring under the bridge for the fireworks)
so when he came back up, he was wet almost to his chest, but I didn't notice. It wasn't until I hugged him after he popped the question that I noticed he was REALLY WET, and he actually had gotten in the water. He handed me the ring box when we were done and it too was dripping wet!
Skyler also had fireworks wired up to the bridge to go off after he asked the question... but those didn't work either. With all of these complications you would have thought he maybe should have just waited and tried again the next day, but this was his only chance. He was leaving in the middle of the night for his brother's wedding, so this was the last time I would see him for a few days. Needless to say, there were a few complications, but he played them off really well because I didn't catch on, I was totally surprised!
The proposal was perfect! Skyler is so clever and worked so hard getting it all ready. He spent hours working with our friend, Blaine Forbush, in Blaine's garage building the sign and wiring the lights up. He even drove to Wyoming with another friend, Steven Hermann, to buy the fireworks. The ring I LOVE was discontinued so he had the ring shop do a search over the US and found one left, he had it shipped to the jewelry store in Idaho Falls and it barely arrived in time.
With all of the craziness that went down, everything still worked out perfectly. I guess it was just meant to be.
Now you know our super cute proposal story?
I know you guys have told us this story before, but reading it again is so wonderful! I bet you are so happy that Skyler thought to take those pictures of him setting up the proposal. What a great keepsake. I am glad that he asked you to marry him!!!!!!!! I am glad we have become such great friends!!
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