To start out I will give a little bit of background on Race and I.
(Sorry if some of this is a repeat from previous posts...)
We met in the end of February of this year.
I have known who Race since early last semester because I had seen him around
the institute and other church related activities.
Race added me as a friend on facebook and since I knew who he was
I accepted his request.
A month or two later we were online at the same time and I decided to introduce myself
online since we had never formally met...just been in a lot of the same group settings.
So I introduced myself to him and he had no idea who I was!
That was somewhat disappointing since I hoped that he at least recognized me...but he didn't.
(We still have no idea to this day why he added me as a friend on facebook if he didn't recognize me..)
Anyway, we talked for a while and he asked me out on a date.
At first I said no since we hadn't formally met and for a couple other reasons.
But he convinced me and I finally said yes.
The next day he got online and invited himself over to my apartment...
WITH ICE CREAM. :]
(Did I mention he works at Coldstone Creamery?)
So he came over and we met for the first time.
That whole night he kept saying how he didn't have to work the next day and didn't have any plans.
And he asked me what my plans were for the next day.
I just said I had school.
After leaving he got on facebook again (since he still didn't have my number).
He asked me if I wanted to go on a date the next day and I said yes. :]
First Date:
For our first date we started out by going to Micheal's.
Well I guess first he picked me up at my apartment.
I was impressed that he walked to the door to come and get me
(rather than texting or calling) and he opened my car door for me.
(Which he continues to do EVERY time we get in the car. :])
Ok so we went to Micheal's and got candles and crayons.
Then we went to Target and picked up some Sparkling Cider with a cork in it.
Finally we went to WalMart to get some matches and we got some lunch from the Subway there.
From there we headed back to Race's apartment where we shot the corks off the bottles
(it was my first time doing this) and then we ate our lunch and drank way too much Sparkling Cider.
After that we started our movie, Avatar, and began making 'pirate candles.'
(For those of you who don't know what these are they are candles stuck in the top of a glass bottle and then you melt crayon wax over them to add color and make it drip down the bottle. It's pretty cool looking and quite fun to do.)
So we did this and then watched our movie. Throughout that week we went on some more dates and hung out a lot. By the end of the week we had the DTR talk and decided that we wanted to be "official". That was on February 27, 2010. For the next three months we continued to get to know one another. We went on lots of fun dates and talked A LOT. We took trips to Las Vegas, Show Low, Chandler, and Pomeren. We met each others families and they all approved. And during all of this we fell in love. :] Which led to...
The Proposal: On May 26th, 2010 Race picked me up for our date at noon. The day before he had told me that what we were doing was a surprise, and that I should dress cute. (Hint Hint!) He also informed me that it was going to be inside and somewhere within the city limits. I had an idea that something might be happening the next day but I decided not to question him too much. After picking me up he drove me out to the mall.
At this point I was a little bit confused. I thought he might be proposing but...at the mall?? Once we were inside the mall he told me we were going to take pictures in the photo booth. (We had done this on one of our dates when we first started dating) But before doing that though he took me out to lunch at Ruby Tuesdays. The food was absolutely delicious and sitting and chatting with Race was great, as always. Afterwords we went to the photo booth and took our first set of pictures. There were people in line afterwords so we jumped out and Race said that he wanted to take some more so we waited for them to finish up and then jumped back in the booth. As we were getting ready for these pictures Race told me that he had ideas for the poses. For the first one he wanted to kiss me so he did that.
And for the second one he got done on one knee and asked me to be his wife! In the third one I said yes (about a thousand times) and in between the third and fourth one we tried to get the ring on my finger for the last picture. Race was shaking like crrrazy!
But he got it on. :] After that we took one more set of pictures so we could show off the ring! It was the perfect engagement and I am engaged to an amazing man. I am so incredibly lucky and I can't wait to be sealed to him for time and eternity.
Here are the pictures in order. 1. One of our first dates. 2. While Race was getting up the guts to propose. 3. While Race was proposing! 4. The two of us showing off the ring! So basically now we are engaged and getting married sometime. We are still figuring that out but I will do better and post more details as soon as I know them! Love, Emma Frances Soon-to-be-Ashby!
