Chapter 5: Down On One Knee

Wednesday, June 5th, 2013, Tucker was sick so I didn't get to see him at all until later that evening. I was starting to panic a little bit about any time we didn't spend together because I only had 10 days left on the continent. After putting the little siblings to bed, we were discussing wedding plans when Tucker apologized because he just didn't see how he could possibly find a ring and pull off a proposal with only a few days to go.

Thursday, June 6th, 2013, Tucker spent part of the morning at my house while my aunt, my mom, and I made a wedding cake for someone. He left right before noon to run some errands, and I didn't see him until later that evening when I went to his house. After a couple hours, we got a text from my parents asking if we wanted to come talk about "school and career paths." Uh oh. So we went and sat at my kitchen table with my mom and dad and talked about our life plans for the next few years. 

After an hour, the conversation started to wind down, and Tucker spoke up, looking at my mom and me, "So, would you guys mind if I talked to Brother West alone for a minute?" 

Ummmmm.....what?! This?! Right now?! Really?!

My mom tried to turn her head away before I could see her grinning, and we both stood up from the table and walked downstairs. I immediately flopped onto the Monster-Sak and buried my head under the giant, stuffed dog to block out any conversation from upstairs, but my mom stood in the hallway trying to catch snippets. After another ten or fifteen minutes, we heard a "We're done!" summoning us back up. When I reached the top of the stairs, Tucker was shaking my dad's hand saying, "Thank you, Brother West," and then they hugged. I walked him outside to the car, but he wouldn't say anything about the conversation, and we said goodnight.

We spent pretty much all of Friday together without talking about his conversation with my dad, and Saturday night, we doubled with his cousin, Ashley, and her husband for an awesome indoor picnic and game night. At one point, the conversation turned to Ashley's wedding ring, and Marc leaned over to Tucker and asked, in Spanish, if he had ring for me yet. Tucker quickly answered back also in Spanish, "Careful, dude. She understands," ending the conversation. Luckily, I didn't know the Spanish word for "ring" at the time, but I gathered enough from the sneaky glances and the way Tucker abruptly put an end to further questioning. We loved spending time together, but the "goodnight" at the end of each day became harder and harder as my departure date was suddenly less than a week away.

Sunday evening, we did dinner with Tucker's family. His uncle, who is from France, educated me on cheese and Belgian pâtisseries, and then we went to my family's house for dessert. Once things settled down for the night, we sat in the living room and talked about the possibility of September 20th as a wedding date. For some reason, in all our discussing, we'd somehow skipped over that weekend, and it seemed perfect, giving us just enough time to plan and before the school semester really gets brutal. Tucker also said he'd talked to his mom about taking pre-engagement pictures the following week, just to check one more big thing off the list before I left. So the plan was 1) take engagement pictures, 2) find a dress, 3) me to go Belgium, 4) Tucker find a ring and an apartment, 5) me come back, 6) get engaged, 7) plan a wedding, 8) move up to Provo, and 9) come home and get married. Crazy? Maybe a little. But doable at least. Kinda.

Exactly one month ago - Monday, June 10, 2013 - was the day I almost became an Avenger. But really. I didn't get to see Tucker all day because I was in Phoenix being injected with radioactive substance in a hospital across the street from a building called Thor Medical. I'd been having a lot of weird stomach problems, so I had to get lots of tests before I flew to Belgium, making my week even busier. Since the kids were still playing with cousins, Mom and I stopped on the way home to begin wedding dress shopping. I tried on about 8 dresses, just to start getting a feel for what styles worked on me, and surprisingly, I really liked one of them. 

The night before during our talk, Tucker had asked if I wanted to go out to dinner before going over to Granny's welcome home from Texas party at 6:30. I got home from dress shopping with a little bit of time to get ready, and Tucker was at my door a couple minutes after 5, wearing one of my favorite shirts of his. We said goodbye to my mom, promising to not be too long, and stepped outside. I was excited when I saw we were taking the truck. Lots of memories in that thing, but younger brother Ben drives it now, so it was a fun surprise that we got it for the evening. One quick glance at the blanket in the back told me we were driving out to our spot in the desert for a picnic. During the drive out there, the thought occurred to me that it would be really awesome if he proposed out here, but someday, not necessarily today. I was totally convinced of the plan we'd discussed the previous night. I was a little surprised we were driving out there for only a short picnic though, since it usually includes a long playlist of our songs and star-gazing, but I didn't dwell on it. We found the campground and parked in the shade of the saguaro, facing away from the sun since it was still a little early for sunset. We spread the blanket out in the bed of the truck and ate our PB&J and sipped lemonade and ate melted chocolate, all while talking and laughing and just being us. The weather was cooling down for the evening, and it was getting to that time of day where everything glows golden. We'd finished eating and were just sitting comfortably when Tucker turned to me and said, "Hey, I have a surprise for you. Go sit over there up on the edge and close your eyes. I'll be right back." I did as he asked, sitting on the edge with my eyes closed, complaining a little about the sun, but grinning and humming to myself all the same (Yes, I was having Prom deja vu for those of you who know that awesome story). I heard Tucker opening the truck doors and rummaging around. He climbed back up into the bed of the truck, & fiddled with some latches before settling himself on the opposite edge facing me.

I opened my eyes to see my love sitting across from me with the guitar across his lap. After a brief explanation, he began to play and sing a song called "Karli Jo Denton" that he'd been slowly writing for some time. All I remember is that it was super cute (I'm gonna hafta make him play it for me again), and that I couldn't stop grinning. The thought of a proposal crossed my mind again, but I ignored it. The song ended, and Tucker said something about how he thinks I'm awesome. NOTE: This is where my brain starts going fuzzy. There was some nervous, silly banter, and bringing up a joke we often repeated, I said, "Well, maybe we should just get married then."

Except then there was a pause.

Tucker looked up at me. "Ya think so?"

I scrunched up my nose and grinned, nodding.

"Well, in that case......." 

Tucker slid off the edge of the truck and leaned over, pulling something out of the guitar case.

He turned to me on one knee, a ring-box in his hands and eternity in his eyes. I don't remember what was said until I heard the words, "Will you marry me?"

"YES!"

I slid off the edge of the truck and into his arms. I couldn't stop hugging and kissing him, and I was laughing from pure shock and happiness. After a few moments, Tucker pulled back to look at me and said, "You didn't even look at the ring!" 

Oh yeah! A ring!

I backed up and pulled off the ruby ring I'd worn since I was 16. I held my hand out, and was suddenly doing some giggly, wiggly, happy dance to get him to put the ring on my finger. NOTE: Tucker will happily reenact this dance for you, but keep in mind that it's probably really exaggerated. He slid the sparkly, gold band on, and I went back to hugging and kissing him.

We snapped a couple quick pictures before Tucker announced it was time to get back in the car. Oh yeah, Granny's welcome home party. We got on the freeway (after a big to-do because my phone disappeared), and Tucker turned to me and said, "Ok, and now I have to tell you all the times I've lied to you in the past week. I wasn't ever sick. And I wasn't running errands on Thursday - I was ring shopping. And I bought the ring on Thursday and had it on Saturday." I grinned. The turd. But I didn't even care at at all. I soon realized that I was going to have to announce this to my whole family within a few minutes. Knowing my dad would still be at work, I began a more frantic search for my phone. When I still couldn't find it, I just grabbed Tucker's and dialed my dad's number hoping he'd pick up. I knew he had to be first on the list. Luckily, he answered, and I let him know that yes, it was a bit earlier than we'd discussed, but we were officially engaged.

I twisted the diamond ring around on my finger to hide the sparkly bit when we pulled up to the party at The Compound. We got out of the truck and walked up to the house hand in hand, a little nervous. We walked in the door to Granny's house and were immediately greeted with a chorus of "Surprise!!!!!" and "Happy Early Birthday!!!!" And then everyone broke into song and began marching around me. Apparently Tucker's surprises weren't over. He'd orchestrated a surprise early birthday party for me since I'd be leaving before mine. :) I blew out the candles and thanked all my family, the engagement still unknown. The chaos died down, and I led Tucker over to where my mom stood behind the couch. I grabbed her hand and inconspicuously pressed the ruby ring into her palm. She turned her hand over and stared at it for a second, and then her eyes went immediately to new ring that had replaced it.

And then she screamed. :) It was a happy scream, but it was definitely a loud scream. :) Everyone turned, and she held up my hand for everyone to see. And then there was a lot more screaming and lots of hugs and "Congratulations!" and pats on the back and "Finally!!!!" and "When?!" and just all sorts of happy noise. :) 

We ate some cake and visited a little bit before heading off to Tucker's house so his family could officially celebrate. We walked in, and his dad walked up and gave me a huge hug and kissed my head, and his mom was laughing because she knew all along, and the little sisters were going crazy, and the little brothers were asking why I didn't tell Tucker "no." :) It was awesome. We ended the night at my house having a good discussion with my parents, and everything was right with the world.

In the next few days, I tried on over 40 dresses, and actually ended up finding THE one. We also got our engagement pictures done, thanks to the awesomest future mother-in-law ever. Wedding planning no longer had to be covert, and I could start publicly asking advice instead of through private messages.

And then I left. I flew 5000 miles to Brussels, Belgium. And two days later, Tucker flew up to Provo. And there we've been ever since. We text every day (thank you, iMessaging!). We Skype when we can. I wake up in the morning and get ready for work just as he's getting in bed for the night. And it's tough.

But one month ago today, the kindest, most amazing, spiritual, perfect-for-me man asked me to be his wife, 

and I said yes.

And in 72 days, we will be sealed as husband and wife for time and all eternity.