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The Proposal

 

Christie's Version: 

I had been up all night on 5/27/2008.  I had to take my new Golden Retriever puppy, Lily, to the Animal ER that night and although she was ok, I stayed up with her all night holding her so she would fell better.   I worked all day on Thursday, May 28th on little sleep and rushed home at 5pm to get to my workout session by 6pm.  (I have hired a personal trainer-so I was not going to miss a session).   I was driving home from the gym around 6:45pm and I called Russell.  I always call him after my workout-just so he knows I survived :)  While I was on the phone with him, I drove down my street and asked him if he was at my house.  There was a car just like his parked at the end of my road.  He said he was.  I opened my garage door to pull my car in and noticed two red roses taped to the back door.  I, again running on little sleep, asked him "who died?”  He said "no one, come inside".  I immediately asked if Lily was ok, he said she was fine and again he said, very calmly, "Please come inside".  I walked into the house thru the kitchen and noticed the lights were all off and there were roses and candles EVERYWHERE!   Russell was in my room; there were 100 tea lights all over the room and dozens of rose petals.  There was a heart on the floor made of rose petals.  It still had not hit me as to what was going on.  Russell got down on one knee and I started to cry.  He proposed with the most beautiful ring I have ever seen.  It was a very romantic proposal!

Russell's Version: 

When nerves are involved, seconds feel like minutes, minutes can feel like hours.  That, in a nutshell, was my entire day.  That afternoon I had lunch with Mr. Scotes to further talk about his blessing in asking his only daughter for her hand in marriage.  While it was a causal conversation with plenty of laughs, I was a bundle of nerves.

After obtaining the go ahead, my plan was set into action.  I wanted to make the proposal memorable.  My first thought was to decorate her back porch with white Christmas lights so when it was dark I could light them up and surprise her outside.  But I found out it is very hard to find Christmas lights in May.

So I set out to cover her bedroom in tea candles.  I bought 200 tea candles, two dozen red roses and two boxes of rose pedals.  She came home from work and went to go workout from 6:00 to 7:00PM.  So I had a short window of opportunity to get everything set up. I set a path from her bedroom door to the window and at the end of the row designed a heart to stand in (although looking at the picture it looks like I made the end of a dog bone).   I lined the path with roses and filled the path with the rose pedals.  I lit ever candle in her house, and put a few left over roses from her garage to the bedroom. Once 6:45 came around I lit the tea candles and waited in her bedroom with the door shut and no fan on.  I did not take into account how much heat 200 tea candles would put out!!! So here I am, pacing back and forth sweating like I’m sitting in a steam room waiting on her to show.  At 6:55 she called me to let me know workout went well.  As she pulled closer to the house she asked it I was at the house.  I told her yes, and to just come on in.  She saw a rose taped to her door and thought something was wrong… and walked very slowly to her door and opened it as if she was staring in a horror movie.  She saw everything and walked even slower into the room… making me all the more nervous.  I winged my speech, figuring from the heart would be the best way to make this moment special.  I got down on one knee and asked… she didn’t miss a beat and said “Yes!”   We hugged for a moment… then she asked if she could go wash her hands before putting the ring on.  We had a good laugh then decided to go blow out the candles… it was really hot in there!!!