Kristen And I Are Engaged!?!?! (This Post Is worth the 2 and a half month wait)

So this is quite surreal for me to be actually making a post about this, and I am actually the one getting engaged. For a while I thought that a movie was going to be made about me called 27 Tuxes for how much weddings I have been in. I constantly joke around about how many people post that they are engaged on facebook; literally sometimes it is daily! For a long time I kind of wondered "when will this be me?" Well I'm glad that I have been patient over the years because I have found an amazing woman, Kristen!

Where to really start in this story.... I feel like I have had so much going through my head over the last month or so, so I guess I will go back to about a month ago. Well, I had known for quite a while, even in college that Kristen was an amazing woman, but over the past several months I have really seen it in how she lives out her life. As we have been living life in community together and been dating, I have just seen how she is such a perfect fit for me and how well we work together. I had been thinking through many things throughout the relationship and just really trying to understand what it looks like to have a truly God revering relationship and when to know that I am ready to get married. After spending more time together and getting to know each others families, I just realized that this is a woman that I would love to marry, so then planning had to begin.

So there I was, finally I had decided that I was going for it... I was going to propose! I had always known that whenever i did propose, it was very important to me to make it a complete surprise and something special. So I had to do a lot of planning and precautions. First thing was first... I needed to find a ring. I knew that Kristen wanted me to pick out a ring without her knowing so I just had to go off of what I knew of her. So I went online and looked through many rings of different styles and narrowed it down to 2 rings. The first was a large center diamond with 2 pear shaped diamonds on the side in a very elegant white gold ring. The second, which is the one I chose had a center raised diamond with channel set alternating diamonds and sapphires in a white gold setting. I ended up deciding that because it was very clean and classic looking but also original that it was the perfect ring for Kristen. So then I needed to know the ring size. Kristen went to work one night, I snuck into her room, grabbed a ring that i was pretty sure fit and took it to a jeweler to get measured. I then placed it back and gave the info to my guy in California, Archie Henderson.

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So, the next part was asking Kristen's Father for her hand in marriage. Being 1000 miles apart, I knew the only way i could ask was over the phone for me to be able to do it without Kristen knowing. So I stealthily stole kristen's phone and got her parents phone numbers out of the phone. I called David (or mr. giesenschlag if you prefer) and asked him in a somewhat awkward but great conversation. I was so blessed to have them give me the go ahead and tell me they are excited about it.

I guess that is enough background: Here is the engagement story. I wanted to make a very special christmasy evening that seemed like a normal date night. So we went to Pick-up Stix for dinner down in san diego (we don't have that in portland, so we missed it). Then I took her to Garrison street in point loma, where the street is DECKED out for christmas, so i wanted her to see the splendor. Next, off to The Hotel Del Coronado. This was her first time down there, and christmas time is the perfect time to check it out. We walked through and saw all the beautiful decorations and then watched people falling on the outdoor ice skating rink. We left there to go to the final spot. As we were driving to the last spot we had the "Remember the Titans" Cd playing in the background and I think that it was the perfect pump up music for me. There is a little park on the edge of coronado overlooking the San Diego bay and with a beautiful view of the San Diego Skyline. We walked over to a bench where I handed Kristen a somewhat large wrapped box, which I told her was an early Christmas present. When she opened it up, she realized it was a Photo book that I had made for her that had "A Book Of Memories" written on the front with a picture of us together. The book has a bunch of photos of us and adventures we have gone on throughout the relationship, for the most part in cronological order. As she turns through it I await somewhat nervously, for I know what the last page had in store. As she turns to the last page, there was a picture of me down on one knee with ring box in hand in front of a christmas tree with the caption "The Memories have only just begun". As she turned to this page, i got down on one knee and proposed. She said yes and with a big smile on her face, gave me a huge hug. It was truly a special moment!

One last surprise was in store for Kristen. After we started driving home, we continued to talk about the night and my sneakiness, and when we arrived at my parents house, waiting there was my parents, my grandma, my sister, brother in law and nephew, my bud dustin and his wife courtney, Kristens parents, her sister and niece, and her friend amanda and husband aaron. We had a great little celebration and was truly the perfect end to an amazing night. I have been truly blessed to be dating Kristen and now I am lucky to be able to say she is my future wife! Below are some pictures from the day including the last picture of Kristen as a pre-engaged woman. Unfortunately, we have no pictures of the proposal itself, but we will remember it forever!