A little background...

We met at church when we were about 5 or 6 years old, grew up together as friends, attended the same high school and were even in combined classes together for two years.

When I was 14 and Tim was 15, we admitted to wanting to be "more than just friends." I went away to Arkansas for college at 16; trying to maintain a long distance relationship when you are that age is just hard. By the time I graduated and moved back three years later, we had still not given up despite the difficulties. Sometime between 2003 and 2005 we had started talking more seriously about the possibility of marriage.

Now a missionary...

In the Spring of 2004, when God called me to Spain as a missionary, Tim was behind me 100% - supporting me emotionally as I went through the process of applying with the mission and raising support. As the time got closer to my departure in the Spring of 2006, we decided that being engaged while I was away for my two year commitment would be better than the alternative (not being engaged). Since by that time we knew we were supposed to marry (and, as it was coming up on our 8 year anniversary), another two years of waiting would give me a chance to fulfil my commitment with Avant and allow Tim to finish his bachelor's degree in Computer Science.

We hadn't really seen any rings that I had liked, until we happened upon a ring online that I absolutely loved - and Tim ordered it. He even called me the day he ordered it, he was so excited. I told him it probably would have been a good idea to not tell his girlfriend that he just ordered an engagement ring for her, but he insisted that he just had to tell somebody, and who would be a better person to tell than his best friend?

That next week, he talked to my dad about it to ask his permission, received the ring in the mail and learned how to put it together just right (it is a puzzle ring)... and all the while I was finishing up my final preparations involved with moving to another country.

How "it" happened...

Saturday, March 25th, I was out on the lawn at my parent's house all morning having a garage sale. Afterwards, we went down to the beach with Kenny and Sarah so they could take some pictures of us together before I left for Spain. This was almost exactly a week before my departure on April 3rd, 2006.

At one point in all of this picture taking, we found ourselves at a little spot that looked just like a tropical paradise - complete with palm trees. As we were standing together, being cute, letting the paparazzi go camera-crazy, Tim asked me,

"so how about we make these engagement pictures?"

"I thought that's what they are..." I said, because of how we had talked about using them as engagement pictures to give out after we finally did get engaged.

"Well something's missing..." he came back with.

And to be totally honest, I don't really remember a whole lot of what happened after that. I know I just held on to him really tight and didn't want to let go... and somehow he finally got the ring out of his pocket and I think he asked me... it is all kind of a blur! Apparently I said yes about three times before he finished asking, though.

You might have thought Tim planned this out - but you'd be wrong. He is really not the planning type. The cute little spot with the palm trees was a totally random place we happened to find - he just so happened to be wearing a (very nice) shirt (that I got him) with cute little palm trees on it, and we just so happened to go out to "Islands" (an Island-themed restaurant) afterwards for dinner.
A themed engagement? Or just a wonderful God who can plan the important things in life way better than we can?

That's my account of our story.
Kirsten