7 Years!

This year I wanted, especially, to remember the day we were engaged. I wanted to reflect on that young, innocent, passionate love and rekindle some old magical flames of over 7 years ago.

Please bare with me- we were engaged before the dawn of the digital age and I had to copy these pictures from my scrapbook! :-)

Tanner and I were engaged on November 29th, 2003. He came with me to California to celebrate thanksgiving with my family. I was itching to get engaged but Tanner said we needed to save more money so I put it out of my mind and was not expecting a thing! On Saturday I had to write a paper so he did some male bonding, or so I thought, with my brother's in law. We met up for lunch at Ruby's on PCH later on. After lunch Tanner was insistent that we watch the sunset on the beach. I was utterly confused because it was 2 in the afternoon and obviously the sun would not set for another few hours. But, I went along.

We walked over to the Montage and found a cute little picnic scene set up- much like a date we went on a few months before- with a fancy red table cloth, chocolate covered strawberries, candles, and sparkling cider.

I commented, "Oh look! Someone is doing the same thing we did! How cute!"

Tanner said, "Let's go check it out. Yum! Let's eat one of the strawberries!"

"No!", I replied, "That's not our food!"

But, when he took a bite out of one I started to get suspicious.

After about 30 seconds of that Tanner nervously suggested we walk a little further to the bench over looking the ocean a few feet away. There, I noticed a huge bouquet of beautiful red roses.

He handed me each rose one by one telling me, with each one, something he loved about me.

(And if you're curious as to how we got this picture- my brother in law was dressed up like Indiana Jones many meters away monitoring us and snapping away- capturing each moment from afar. There was also a video camera hidden in the bushes by my feet. These boys sure planned an extraordinary proposal while I was doing homework!)

He held the last rose up high and asked me to pull off each petal telling him everything I loved about him and in the end it revealed a beautiful, sparkling, diamond ring!

(Which he picked out all by himself!)

He told me to look down to the sand and there was this sign, lovingly carved out just for us! My brother in law, who was taking pictures from afar, had a walkie talkie connection to my family down below and when he saw Tanner go down on one knee and me smile and give him a big hug he dispatched, "Go go go!" and my whole family ran out onto the sand and cheered for us! :-)

I was in absolute heaven! I cried and looked like a mess but I was so happy and could not stop kissing my FIANCÉE!

My family brought up pizza and gifts for us and my sister gave us tickets to Disneyland so we celebrated there that night. :-)

I love you Tanner Ray Peterson. Here's to 70 more adventurous years together! xoxoxo