The Thought Had Crossed My Mind

Since Gabe has had a chance to tell everyone his side of "our story", I thought I'd share it from my perspective. On the Monday before we got engaged, Gabe and I were talking on the phone about the upcoming weekend and the bachelor party and fantasy football draft he was going to have. He said he wanted to take me on a date on Friday night since he had plans for the rest of the weekend. We don't go on real dates as often as we used to so I was excited about an evening of walking through the Birmingham Botanical Gardens after work and then a nice dinner at Highlands Bar & Grill. As soon as we hung up, the thought crossed my mind...what if he proposes?!

All week I had an internal debate of will he ask or won't he? By the time Friday rolled around, I'd pretty much talked myself out of thinking he would propose. Gabe's great about doing random sweet things so this date wasn't such an out of the ordinary thing, but I did go ahead and do my nails just in case.

When we got to the Gardens, I tried to kind of hang back and let him lead me in the direction he wanted to go just in case he had something planned. But of course, Gabe whips out a map of the Gardens and says where do you want to go (score one for he's not going to ask). As we started walking, we realized that the Gardens were set for a wedding that evening. If I believed in signs, I would have to mark one up for he's going to propose after I saw that. We went into the rose garden area and promptly saw the biggest, scariest spider I've ever seen outside of a cage (see Gabe's post for a picture).

It was such a beautiful day and absolutely perfect weather, especially for August in Alabama. There were several people in the Gardens taking pictures, relaxing and enjoying the great weather as we just continued to meander along the paths. We headed for the wildflower area and it slowly became more secluded and just us on the paths. Gabe saw an elevated area and suggested we go there. He was in front of me as we walked up the hill to the area and I noticed that his camera and phone were really sticking out of his jean pockets. I thought that there was no way he was going to propose while we were here because there wasn't a place in his pockets to hide a ring box. The "he's not going ask" side had clearly won...or so I thought. When we got to the top of the path, I remember commenting on a cute rock that looked like a bench and seeing a plaque at the base of one of the trees. We had been looking at a lot of the names of the plants so I bent down to get a better look at this one since it was covered up by a leaf. The name was a little strange so I was trying to say it in my head and was bent over for quite awhile. I thought Gabe was standing behind me and turned half way around to tell him the name, but I didn't see him. When I turned all the way back around, I was quite shocked to see him down on one knee holding a ring.

My first reaction was to laugh. I didn't know what to do. I had clearly been wrong about him not being able to hide a ring in his jean pockets (rings fit in the little change pocket if you take them out of the box) and was not prepared for it. He took my hand and said a lot of really sweet things and asked me to marry him. I realized I was still giggling while he was talking to me and remembered telling myself to stop laughing or to at least cry a little. I was also telling myself to remember what he was saying to me. It's amazing the things you remember at these times in your life. While I do remember that the plant's name began with Florida and all the things I was telling myself, I don't quite remember most of what Gabe was telling me. Even him putting the ring on my finger escaped me! Later in the evening, I had taken it off to put lotion on my hands and told him he needed to put it back on finger since he hadn't done that yet. It was Gabe's turn to laugh then.

After taking pictures and laughing about how long he had to wait for me to turn around and wondering if anyone saw us while he was waiting, we headed back to the car and started making phone calls to our family with the news. Gabe being the sweet, traditional guy that he is, had spoken to my dad a couple of weeks earlier to ask for permission to marry me so my parents were expecting my call. My sisters were quite surprised and very happy for us. It has been so much fun getting to share our news with everyone and start planning for the big day. I'm looking forward to the months ahead and many more good times.