Sunday, August 18, 2013

The Proposal...Twelve Years Ago Today

Twelve years ago today was the day my husband proposed to me.  By this time, I had moved to Sacramento, California.  I had left everyone else in the world that I loved and headed out on my own, again.  I met my husband on LDSchat.com.  It was meant to be.  I had wandered into a chat room I had never been in before.  I went in as "NYLady."  I had always chatted as "GreenEyes27F" up to that point.  How is that for telling about yourself in just a few letters? 

My husband said to me, "I served my mission in NY."

Me, knowing how everyone assumes you live in NYC, stated, "Oh yeah, what part?"

To which he stated, "Jamestown, NY."

I replied, "That is in my mission."

That is how it all started.  Coincidence? I think not.

This was Wednesday, April 11, 2001.  I was supposed to be in Erie, PA, but I decided not to make the trip that night.  I stayed up most of the night chatting with him.  The next day, we were leaving to visit my sister in Massachusetts.  I was exhausted, but that was okay with me.  While I was in Boston, we exchanged e-mails and kept in touch that way.  We talked every night, for hours, once I returned home.

We continued chatting online, until May 26, which was a Saturday night, when he came to NY to visit me.  He flew in really late.  I picked him up and we went up to Niagara Falls, Canada, to see the Falls.  I hate the Falls.  He had never been there.  That is where we had our first kiss, of many to come.  We spent some time up there before driving back to Olean.  I showed him where I went to High School.  We kissed on that lawn too.  I had never been kissed there.





I loaded up a U-Haul trailor, hitched it to my Blazer, and we drove back to California.  We left on the 29th.  We were supposed to leave on the 28th, but we spent much longer in Palmyra than we expected.  We went and saw church sites.  This was the first time I had visited Palmyra church sites in my life.  We had several pictures taken there.

On the way back to California, we took some detours.  We stopped in Kirtland, OH, where the first LDS temple was built.  We stopped in Nauvoo, Illinois, where the Nauvoo LDS Temple was under construction.  We went to Carthage, Illinois, where the beloved prophet, Joseph Smith, and his brother Hyrum were martyred.

We traveled on to California.  I had no idea what to expect when I got there.  We went to his parents' house.  They were very cordial.  They let me stay in his sister's room, until I found a place to live.  That happened quite quickly.  I moved in with a wonderful woman, Dawna, from church.  I rented a room from her.

Keith worked as a security guard at a college.  I found a temp job with Verizon Wireless.  As time went by, we got to know each other better.  He decided to propose to me.  He chose this day,12 years ago.     It was a Saturday.  We got in his car and he drove to the LDS Oakland Temple.  We walked around it around the outside.  Looking at it from the front, he proposed to me on the left side.  I said yes.

We went to an expensive, but not so good, Italian restaurant that was close by.  We then drove home. The traffic in that area is horrible.  I called my parents and told them.  The date we planned was October 18, 2001.  We got married 20 days after the proposal on September 7, we didn't want to wait any longer.


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