ENGAGED!!!

that's right...you heard me...i am engaged to the most beautiful woman in all the world, kathleen elizabeth brannan. i spent this whole last weekend in san diego, california visiting her as she has been there for the past four months working on a music therapy internship.

so even though katie tells all our stories way better than i do, here's how i did it:

i'll start by setting this up a little. about a week before i was to go out there, katie and i were talking about marriage (as be so often do), and she let it slip that she more-or-less expected me to propose when i got there. i wanted this to be a surprise, of course, so i did a great job at convincing her that i was going to stick to our original agreement and not propose until her internship was over at the end of september. it must have worked because she didn't see a thing coming.

i flew in to san diego on friday the 13th and katie picked me up at the airport around noon. now, i had been travelling since 3am, so i was understandably a bit tired, but since katie knows me so well, she immediately picked up on something that was a bit off with me; i was a little less talkative, or something...i don't know. the plan was for us to spend our first evening there having a picnic on the beach at sunset (something i suggested to her several months ago), so we got our food and headed out. since our one-year dating anniversary happens to be today, i had the perfect excuse for presenting her with an anniversary present once we arrived at the beach...she still expected nothing.

her "present" consisted of five small candles in individual tins with lids; each lid was numbered 1-5 so she would open them in order. on the inside of each lid was one word in a phrase for her to read sequentially; all put together it said: "i will love you forever." now, we had agreed that we wouldn't tell each other that we loved one another until we were engaged, so when she opened the third candle, the one that said "love," she started to figure it out. i opened the fifth candle which had the ring in it, and under the sunset on the beach i asked her to marry me. i can't describe how overjoyed i am to have such an amazing woman in my life; to get to tell her everyday how much she means to me and how much i love her (i still get giddy to say that i love her :-).

the pictures were taken by a nice older couple who happened to be walking on the beach while we were there. i jumped up and asked if they would take our picture. the lady was so nice, she asked if she could take a bunch, and they turned out great.

so that's the deal; i'm in love and couldn't feel more blessed. what an amazing thing to be shown love in this way. i cannot wait to see all the things God is going to do through me and katie.