I'm back~

So, it has been a while since my last post, between kitchen remodel, Mom, holidays and a very tragic death of one of our friends on the fire department with Charlie... I just pushed everything else to the back burner.  However, after a trip out to LA with Bethany, I am refocused and ready to roll on!!

When I last posted I was asking the question was I really ready to just move out if I didn't get a marriage proposal?  In my head I would tell you yes, I wanted, needed and deserved more! My heart thought my head was crazy and they battled daily, suffering in silence.  I did not need to push, Charlie was not that kind of man.  As the months rolled on, we had it all.  I was adjusting into my roll as woman of the house. Cooking, cleaning, laundry, baseball, basketball, car pool, it was everything I wanted, but looking at an empty finger, always snapped be back to reality, was I not good enough, did he not love me in that way?

It was silly really, I mean a piece of paper and a ring was not going to change anything, it had gotten to the point of us joking about it, Charlie is no fool he knew I wasn't "really" joking. I had set a move out date of February, it came and went, after all who wants to move in the winter.   The winter went on with fabulous dates, great times with friends and the kids, a bit of arguing as we were settled now and real life took over, but we just really communicate well, so it was good.  The disagreement's we did have focused on one thing, the only thing we have truly ever fought about, can you guess???  Luckily as the years have gone on, it is something we laugh about now, I was so silly!  Our 3yr anniversary was approaching and it was a weekend we had the kids, so we made plans for them to sleep over our friends house.  It was a warm Saturday in July and Charlie was working washing windows and I was at our friends in-laws pool with he kids, Tom had a baseball playoff game that afternoon  Charlie and I were going  and then dropping him back off at the pool. Charlie arrived at lunch time with a dozen yellow roses for me, I was so happy, our friend said "what is that little box in there" I jumped to my feet, but he was kidding there was no little box.  Charlie took a dip in the pool and called the kids down to a corner of the pool, I figured he was going over rules for sleeping over  and at the time didn't think much of it.   We changed and left for the base ball game, Charlie was being weird, more romantic and lots of childhood memory talk and how much I had given him his life back and what he always wanted for his home to be.  When his parents arrived at the game, he said he needed to go talk to them and he would be right back, again this was strange but I didn't give it much thought either.

After the game, we dropped Tom off and went home to ready to go out to dinner, when we went to leave Charlie wanted to stop at the pool and say goodbye/goodnight to the kids, as we walked back in I asked Beth to take care of my flowers and Dan said "they smell really good, you should smell them".  Slightly annoyed as I wanted to get going I went over to smell them, on top was a little box all wrapped.,  Now our friend is a prankster, so I assumed that he went and got a box to play a joke on me, so playing along and cracking jokes I began to open the box....SURPRISE~ inside was a diamond! I turned around and Charlie was on his knees and the kids stood behind him and he asked me to marry them, as tears began to flow, I said "YES" it was perfect, a day I remember like it was yesterday.   Dan later said that he thought it should have been more romantic and I told him I would not have it any other way.  So now we talk about all that lead up to that moment, well first we set a wedding date 7/28/01 the following summer and our official first date.  So I find out that when he called the kids to the corner, he told them his plan.  When we left Dan informed our friends and they went and got cake, cards and champagne.  At the park when he went to talk to his parents he told them, and the walk through his childhood to meeting me was to let me know how much I meant to him, it all made sense now!!!  See, I would have been intrigued by all this behavior if Charlie did things on "special" days, but he didn't he did them went you least excepted it.  I guess his thought was I would never suspect a proposal on our anniversary so it was perfect!  He was right, I was very, very surprised!  We spent the whole night planing our wedding, we started the guest list and we were beyond happy and excited. I was going to have the perfect "Cinderella" like wedding, I mean really is anyone surprised?