As most of you already know, I got engaged a couple weeks ago! Here is the FULL story with pictures and everything. WARNING--it's going to take a while to read through all this, so just be ready!
Friday, November 19, I left work early so Kory and I could go to Portland that evening. We were flying out the next morning to go back to NM/TX to be with our families for Thanksgiving. We went to dinner at Ruth's Chris Steak House, which was the most incredible steak I've ever had! Oh my, it was so yummy!
I thought we just went on a fancy date night because we hadn't been on one in a while, so I wasn't really suspecting anything. After dinner (in downtown Portland), we went to the car to get bundled up and then went to walk by the river. Kory had pulled a present out of the car and by this time, I was starting to think something was possibly going on...but I've thought that a few times over the course of the past 3 years and nothing ever came of it, so I kept telling myself that I shouldn't get my hopes up.
Before I explain how he proposed, I need to give you a little history. 3 years ago, Kory and I were just starting to hang out and take an interest in each other. He is very artistically gifted and so he had several drawings and diagrams in his room. It kind of became a running joke that he would draw a diagram to explain everything. One night, he had me go get his sketch book off his desk so we could look at some of his new drawings together. He told me I wasn't allowed to talk and I just had to flip through the pages with him. Each page had a different drawing, letter, chart, graph, etc. on it and it all had to do with our friendship/possible relationship. The last page was a decision page and at the top it said, "Will You Go Out With Me?" and it had two pictures: one showed him getting slapped and it said NO and the other had him getting a kiss on the cheek and it said YES. I actually just shook my head "Yes" and didn't kiss him because I was so nervous/awkward. Anyhow, so fast forward 3 years and we're on a bench by the water in downtown Portland.
When we sat down on the bench, Kory told me he had a present for me. I opened it up and found the exact same sketch pad from a few years ago. (The pictures of the drawings were all taken on my phone and I was in a hurry, so they're not the best quality, but you get the idea.)
I began flipping through the pages and found this was the first drawing. It says "Kor + Beans = Hearts". I can't explain to you why my nickname is Beans, because I don't remember. All I know is that Kory called me Beanut one day and it stuck, only sometimes it's shortened to Beans. I, being the creative genius that I am, have created a very clever nickname for Kory: Kor!
The first drawing seriously blew my mind. He made a periodic table of our relationship!! It is color-coded and personalized, but most of it probably only makes sense to Kory and I.
The key for which color corresponds to which description. This took a lot of work, people!
Next up we have a bar graph. In case you can't read the bars are "Actual Friends and Family", "Facebook Friends" and "People who will understand these due to the copious inside jokes". The * next to FB friends says "Number may be substantially reduced after Nov. 17th" (National Unfriend Day). The + after "people who will understand" says "number includes Kabie as I explained some things to her while making these."
The world's smallest violin--for everyone else who thought they knew what was best for our relationship or tried to tell us what we should or shouldn't be doing :) About now I think Kory was telling me that we had a lot of people trying to tell us how to be in relationship with each other, but he was grateful that we didn't listen to them and stuck it out together.
At this point, Kory is talking to me about how he knows I've been so patient with him in our relationship and we had fights over commitment and he hated that, but he knew that we would be so much better off for spending a long time dating.
You might remember this Science diagram from your early science textbooks. I obviously prefer the Love diagram on the right. Kory was telling me how he loved me more than he ever thought he could love anyone. The science diagram shows the sun, Earth and an orange. The love diagram shows his love for me, his love for Mike & Ikes and his love for the OU Sooners with a note that says "Didn't have a smaller marker".
"Better Together" by Jack Johnson has kind of become 'Our Song' and one of the lines in that song says "With only two, just me and you, not so many things we got to do
Or places we got to be, we'll sit beneath the mango tree now
Yeah, it's so much better when we're together"
When we got to this page, Kory told me he didn't want to sit under the mango tree with anyone else and I was the only girl for him. (I was kind of excited at this point so when I tell you what Kory was saying to me during all of this, understand it's my loose interpretation/memory of that moment
.)
Before we turned the page, Kory said, "Just like the first time, this one also has a decision page." So I turned the page and saw this drawing of two hands. While I was looking at the page, Kory got down on one knee in front of me.
He said some really sweet things but I definitely don't remember them now...I just saw something shiny in his hand and was just waiting for him to pop the question. So he did! I do remember him asking me to marry him and I said "Yes!" and there were hugs and kisses and lots of giggles. Soon after checking out my new awesome ring, Kory told me there was one more diagram to look at but it had to wait until after I said "yes."
A few more things to explain: We love watching Iron Chef together and we also always joke about the proposal in Jerry Maguire, so Kory did an Iron Chef scoresheet comparing Jerry's proposal to his own. Not surprisingly, Kory won! :) Also, "meant" isn't misspelled, I pronounce it "mant" and Kory always makes fun of me for that.
After seeing all the diagrams, we snapped a few pictures! I hate that this one is dark but I really love it because it's the first picture of me with my ring.
This one is brighter so you can actually see my face and the ring. Also, I have on Kory's scarf he let me borrow and it doesn't match what I'm wearing at all, but it was warm and that was all I cared about. It had been raining all night, was freezing cold and the wind off the water was quite chilly! God was feeling romantic that night also because he stopped the rain just long enough for the proposal.
I was checking out my ring and was VERY impressed Kory remembered which ring I liked so much. We looked at rings a long time earlier and even I couldn't remember for sure exactly what it looked like.
My hands were so cold I couldn't really feel them very well at this point but I didn't even care because I was so excited! I always thought I would cry when I got engaged, but I didn't at all. I was just ecstatic and couldn't quit smiling.
We went back through the diagrams and Kory was explaining how he made them or why he included them.
This is my look of genuine amazement when he told me he spent 5+ hours on this picture alone.
At this point, I have to tell you the craziest part of the night. We had just snapped a few pictures and were sitting on the bench, looking at the water, just soaking in the moment. Since we were downtown, it should be no surprise that a homeless man approached us and wanted to chat. I won't go into the details, but just know we spent the next 45 min - 1 hour hanging out with and trying to help Wesley/trying to get rid of Wesley so we could celebrate our engagement! He was obviously drunk, told us about murdering a ton of people, said he went to culinary school with Emeril, is currently the highest decorated war veteran in America, was once in the CIA, and he also starting flipping off and cursing God at one point. We really did want to help him but when he told us he wanted to go buy more liquor, we changed our tune. To make a long story short, we ended up rescuing Wesley from the cops as he almost got arrested when we sent him across the street (so we could take a few more pictures) and then gave him a couple dollars and finally left him because I was so cold I seriously thought I was going to be sick. So here is the one picture we took of ourselves that night.
The pictures we quickly snapped because we knew Wes was waiting for us near our car.
The place where our Happily Ever After began :)
Right after proposing, Kory told me that I couldn't tell anyone. What!?! Talk about torture!! He planned it where we could go home and tell our families and friends in person and not have to call/text/put it on FB. It was really sweet of him to plan that and I was so happy that I got to hug my parents when we told them, but waiting 24 hours before I told ANYONE was complete and total torture. My ring stayed in the box in my purse for most of our time at home until we had told both mine and Kory's family in person--almost a week after the proposal.
We went to NM to see my family first so I got to tell my parents, grandparents, a few aunts/uncles/cousins and some close friends before Kory got to tell anyone. We got to hang out with my little cousin, Kylie, one day and she instantly attached herself to Kory. I told her our secret ("We're getting married!") and then asked her to share the secret with the rest of my family. She was so cute!
All of Kory's family wasn't together until lunchtime Thanksgiving Day. This was Thursday after we got engaged the previous Friday night. I was seriously bursting at the seams by Thursday morning. I was avoiding his whole family because I felt like I would just blurt it out if I talked to anyone...so I spent a very long time in the bathroom getting ready that morning and kept finding excuses to get away from people.
Right after saying the prayer for Thanksgiving lunch, everyone sat down at the table together. Kory grabbed the guest book and told his mom that she'd like what he wrote in there. He asked her to read it out loud to everyone else. She said "Happy Thanksgiving from Kory and Mandy. Oh yeah and...YOU ARE??" haha It was really funny. Kory had to keep prompting her to finish the sentence because everyone else was a little confused. So everyone got up from the table and hugged and celebrated and it was priceless. Kory got it all on video so I'll have to see if I can post that on here.
The best part about telling his family was that I could finally call and text friends and put it on Facebook and share our good news with the whole world! It really was the best Thanksgiving EVER! :)
To close, I'll include a picture of my ring since you couldn't see it well in any of the other pictures. It's just perfect for me and was exactly what I wanted--both the ring and the guy.
I have SO much to be thankful for!
Eating gelato on Ponte Vecchio Bridge in Florence, Italy--December 2008
Eiffel Tower in Paris, France--December 2008
Hanging out with friends in Lubbock, TX on my "Christmas break"--December 2008
Loch Ness, Scotland--March 2009
Meeting Joshua Radin after his concert in London, England--March 2009
