One Year and a Day Ago...

The 4th of July will always have a special place in my heart. Not only is it my favorite holiday EVER, but this one marks one year from the day that Nick asked me to marry him. 

He was planning on proposing in May, originally. He had this big, elaborate "Date Day" set up. He even went through the trouble of ordering a custom made invitation and mailing it to my house. When I opened the invitation, my thoughts immediately went to, "OMGrapefruit, he's proposing." I even asked his seven year old  sister if that's what he was doing.

"YEAH!" She said.

Sweet!

So, along comes Date Day. We did SO much stuff. We started out by volunteering at the hospital. Seriously. It was really a cool experience. Then, we had lunch and went to see "Kung Fu Panda 2". Afterwards, he took me back to his apartment and taught me how to make tortillas. (He lived in Mexico for two years.) THAT was an experience. We also cooked chicken (which splattered grease all over my arms and I had "battle wounds" for two months), prepared a seriously pretty salad and even made Flan. Yum. At the end of everything, he took me home, kissed me goodnight and left. 

Wait, what?

He never proposed?!

His sister is SUCH a liar.

As it turns out, he didn't have the ring yet. Because he was having it custom made for me by his cousin in Virginia, it wasn't quite finished by the deadline Nick had set. 

"Oh, well," he thought. "This will throw her off my scent, anyway."

It certainly did.

Fast forward to July 2nd. It was a Saturday and I was really looking forward to watching the fireworks with him the following Monday. 

Of course, autocorrect had other plans...

Anyway, we did NOT go pooping that day. Instead, he took me to a waterfall in his hometown.

Now, I wasn't aware that we'd be off-roading that day, so I wore some very unsteady flip flops. When I saw that he was leading me PAST the railing and onto the rocks leading directly to the falls, I had a minor freak out. He was very patient with me and held my hand the entire way so I wouldn't fall to my death.

Anyway, when we got to the rock that I've circled in the picture above, he told me to close my eyes. 

"Right, okay," I thought. "So when I open my eyes, he'll be on one knee. YAY!"

I was wrong again.

He slid a card into my hands and told me to read it.

He had actually written his proposal out in a card so that I could have it forever and read it over and over again. I, of course, cried my eyes out. While I was reading, he had gotten the ring out of his pocket and was kneeling in front of me. I yelled out, "OF COURSE!" and just about tackled him off the rock in an attempt to hug and kiss him. 

Unbeknownst to us, while all of this was happening, we were getting an audience at the lookout. So, when I kissed him, we heard, "WOOOOOOOO!!!!" That was pretty much the icing on the cake for him and he was pretty proud of himself. And why not? He was a total stud that day.

So, now you know. I love the 4th of July more than any other holiday.

How was your 4th?

P.S. I guess my Tuesday's Confessions was kind of a bust. Let's just forget all about that, shall we? Deal.