the scoop.

I have always been a bit of a romantic at heart. Maybe even more than a “bit”. You can always find me on a free night watching any of my collection of sappy, cutesy chick flicks.

Being the expert in all things chick flick-ish, I had often thought of my own “engagement story.” How would it happen? Would I be surprised? Would I cry? All of these questions were answered this past weekend. And my own “engagement story” went a little bit like this:

I was completely expecting it to happen this weekend. (so much for the element of surprise) We had talked dates, even discussed little details, but hadn’t really started “officially” planning anything yet. And I was NOT going to start planning anything until I had a ring on my finger! So when I arrived home on Friday night and Kolton suggested we do something fun the next day, like go for a four-wheeler ride, the little wheels in my head started turning. I was SO on to him.

So on Saturday afternoon, Kolton showed up to my house with a fourwheeler in the back of his truck and informed me that we were going up to Meadow Lake. (i.e. my FAVORITE place in the world, as I have informed him many, many times.) so we hopped into the pickup and went on our way.

As we were driving we noticed some ominous, dark rainclouds completely obscuring the mountains that we were headed towards. But we decided to press on and see if we could possibly miss the rain. Kolton mentioned that he didn’t even care where we went but we HAD to go on a fourwheeler ride. Once again, I just smiled a little secret smile to myself. I was SO onto him.

We finally made it up to the lake and immediately headed on a hike. I really love hikes, and this one was so beautiful. We came to a little bridge over a creek and I announced to kolton-semi-subtly- that I LOVED this place, and it could possibly be my favorite place in the world. He just nodded his head and kept walking.

Then we reached a little “mini-lake” (that’s how I refer to it anyway) we hopscotched on some rocks til we finally got to a big one that was out in the water. Once again, I mentioned to Kolton that I LOVED this place, and even glanced over my shoulder hoping to see him on one knee.

But no.

 Once again he just moved on without saying much of anything. Disappointed, I followed after him. We hiked for a bit longer, til we were both out of breath and then the weather started turning pretty nasty so we made our way down the mountain. We made it back to the pickup right as it started to rain. Now what? We kinda looked at each other knowing that the four-wheeler idea was out of the question and began to drive home.

As we were headed down the mountain we saw a little side road that I was positive was just for fourwheelers. Turns out, it was just a fourwheeler trail that was a bit larger and could possibly fit a pickup. If you were real careful. (kolton will disagree with that, but this is my story.) anyway…so as we're headed up this tiny trail with me to afraid to breathe too heavily for fear that we will tumble right down that mountainside, the trail suddenly opens up. We pull off to the side of the road and we can see the ENTIRE valley. (except for of course, the part the rainclouds are hiding) so we’re looking out at this amazing view just chatting about everything.

Pretty soon (after about an hour of me wondering what the heck we are still doing up here) Kolton gets all serious, turns to me and says, “Jayci, I have a sad story to tell you.” I look at him with a confused look on my face, and he starts into this big story about how he has been SEARCHING for a ring and can’t find anything. He mentions all the jewelers that we’ve gone to and how none of them have anything that he liked and how he’s been so busy at school and hasn’t had time to really seriously get looking and now he just doesn’t know what to do, but we probably need to start planning everything soon, so we’ll go ring shopping again another day. At the end of his spiel he finally says, “So…will you marry me?” I of course said “Yes” kind of confusedly. This was all wrong! What happened to the one knee, ring thing?!  So as we sit in silence for a second he says “Oh! I forgot to give ya something!” and pulls out of his pocket a long piece of  braided string with a bead on it.

a bead.

He said something like "this will have to do until we can find a ring." So he hands it over to me and I just kind of twirl it in my fingers just waiting and waiting for him to say “Just kidding!” and make this all better. Instead he says, “Hey, let’s put it on!” takes my hand and ties the string in a knot around my finger. Then he pulls his pocketknife out of his pocket (go figure) and cuts off the excess string.

I look at my hand and just want to cry. This was so NOT how I had always pictured it. I wasn’t really mad necessarily, just extremely, extremely disappointed. And there was no way we were going to tell people we were engaged. Not with a string on my finger. Now I know that this makes me sound like a little brat, but I just had my mind so set on what exactly I thought was going to happen and it just wasn’t happening. It took every ounce of self control to just shut my mouth and not say all the things I wanted to.

Such as:

Kolton! What are you thinking!

Are you kidding me!

You are NOT serious!

And…why didn’t we go ring shopping today! (actually…..i did say that one. But it was said in a nice tone)

No sir, instead I just shut my mouth before I said something I would regret later. Not knowing exactly how to handle my silence after I had been so bubbly and happy and hopeful ten minutes before, Kolton suggested that we just go on home.

So we did.

And I don’t think we said hardly two words the whole drive home.

I was trying to come to terms with my disappointment, telling myself I was just being stupid. A ring is just a dumb materialistic thing (that I really want) and what really matters is Kolton and getting married, and not silly things like beautiful, sparkly things that go on your finger. At the same time, I was also coming to terms that we were not going to be getting married in December like we had planned. Because really-there was no way I was going to start planning a wedding without a ring. i don’t know why, but that just did NOT sound appealing.

Just for the record…I did have a teensy little hope that maybe he was just kidding and had something else planned. It was very slim, and I didn’t dare think about it too much because if I was wrong then I would REALLY be crushed. So instead I was planning a cry session for when I got home.

Soon we turn on to the county line road and are headed towards his house when his dad calls. Kolton acted funny about the phone call so I started wondering if maybe a little something more was going on. We pulled up to his shop and unloaded the fourwheeler that hadn’t even been used. He was being very slow about everything and I was freezing so I was trying to hurry him up. Finally we got back into the pickup and pulled into his driveway. All the lights in the house were off , which was a little bit weird I thought. We walked into the house, took off our shoes, and he still didn’t turn the lights on.

And then I saw it.

Coming from the kitchen was a soft little glow that could only be from candles. He led me into the kitchen and sure enough, there was a beautiful little dinner all set up, complete with candlelight and that fancy fake champagne stuff. “Are you kidding me!” I asked him. We walked over to the table and I noticed that there was a fancy little box all wrapped up with a beautiful bow on top. I was instantly about ten billion times happier until he said

 “I knew you’d be disappointed, so I got you a present”

 My heart fell (again) and I just knew  that it was a necklace. (don’t ask me why) of course, he went to a jewelry store, couldn’t find a ring, and instead bought a necklace. It just makes sense, and the box was rectangular to boot.

So Kolton dished up our dinner and I just stared at this teasing little box by my plate. He brought our food and said I could probably open the box after we were finished eating. By this point I had been on such an up and down emotional ride that I just ate my food. Kolton scarfed his down and then watched me finish up my food. I was so shaky and all jumbled up that it was all I could do to put each forkful into my mouth. But somehow, I finally finished and Kolton calmly said

“Okay, I guess you can open it now” and hands the pretty little box to me.

Under the wrapping was a little white box. In that box was a little ring box. As soon as I saw that I’m sure I just got a big ole grin on my face.

And of course, when I opened up the little ring box, there was a

beautiful,

sparkling,

DIAMOND ring looking back at me.

FINALLY Kolton stood me up, got down on one knee, and gave me a REAL proposal. I again said YES (it was a little less confused this time) and we did the whole celebrating, putting the ring on, maybe kissing a little, thing.

and that's about all I've got. It's a doozy isn't it?

And now I just got this big ole ring on my finger, a handsome fiancé, and a date at the Idaho Falls temple.

December 21.

 Be there.