The past two years

Two years ago today (May 13th) Reece asked me to be his wife. As I look back at that day, it's one of the most memorable days of my life thus far. I'll recount the story here:

I went to bed on Friday, May 12, 2006 sad to be in Indianapolis. Just 2 weeks earlier I had packed my bags and driven up to Indy from my parents' house in North Carolina. I had just begun my ministry with high school students with Student Venture. Although I really enjoyed ministry and exploring this new place, I had the looming feeling that I was supposed to be with Reece. Any girl knows that waiting for the guy's next move is hard, and yet exciting. So that's where I was. I planned to get my mind off of things by visiting my childhood friend Will, who lived up in Chicago--about 3 hours from Indianapolis. I planned to get up early...around 6am.

At 4:30 on Saturday morning, my roommate woke me up. She told me to get a bag packed...not to worry about showering. Reece was flying me back to North Carolina because he missed me. What?! First, why was Reece flying me back? He doesn't have that kind of money to fly me back just because he misses me. Maybe he has something else up his sleeve...I tried not to let my mind go there, even though I hoped that he would propose to me so bad! Secondly, don't take a shower?! I haven't seen my boyfriend in 2 weeks...I'm taking a shower.

So, I did and I arrived late to the airport...I was so thankful that something made me pack to carry on. I arrived at the airport in Raleigh to see that my friend Kathryn was there to pick me up. So strange...He flew me all the way there and didn't even pick me up. This was turning out to be such a strange and exciting day. Kathryn took me back to her house, where Reece had planned for me to have time to take a shower and get ready for the day....OHHH so that's why I wasn't supposed to take a shower. He's a smart one. So, since I had taken a shower, Kathryn and I just hung out until Reece came to pick me up. I found out that he had actually been at the urgent care all morning with Toncilitus. He was really in no shape to be having this exciting of a day.

Reece picked me up around noon and took me to the place where we ate lunch on our second date. We enjoyed our BBQ...nervously that is. As we walked up to the register to pay, I saw that Reece had a yellow receipt in his wallet, which read:

Ring Deposit: $500

Whaaaaaaaaaaat???? I was not supposed to see that! I pretty much knew he bought the ring at that point, but still tried not to get my hopes up that he would propose today. A few hours later Reece took me to Lake Johnson...which was the location of lots of hanging out our first few months of dating. We walked slowly around the lake, ending up at a bench overlooking the water. We talked while I looked at pictures on Reece's camera. Suddenly I realized that he wasn't paying attention to the pictures or really anything I was saying, and instead was looking up in a nearby tree. I followed his line of vision, and there I saw I big camera up in the tree. I was so surprised, and asked Reece why there was a camera in the tree. At that point it was so obvious that he put it there, and that I should probably not probe any further. Like a good little girlfriend I played along the rest of the way, and acted like I didn't know what he was about to do....He told me much earlier that if he sensed his girlfriend knew he was about to propose, then he wouldn't do it. Obviously, I didn't want this to be postponed.

To my excitement, he did propose that day and it was wonderful. He brought an i-pod with sweet, special songs on it and we danced for about 30 minutes right there by the lake. It was really the greatest day, and I'm so happy to be Reece's wife.