We're Getting Married!

Here is our engagement story, as told by Ken! This picture was taken about 20 minutes after we got engaged (Friday January 30). You can see the airport lights in the background, the Potomac between us and the airport, and on the left is the big rock Ken talks about in our story. The yellow around it is from the edge of the blanket I made him for Christmas.

Enjoy!!!

I picked Kelli up from work on Friday evening, as I often do. After I picked her up, we went to Costco. One year ago on January 30th, we had run into each other at Costco, at that point we'd known each other for several months, but it was during that run in a year ago that I first began thinking, "I should get to know that girl better than I do..." So, we did a little shopping, and before we left I took her to the photo department. When we had run into each other a year ago at Costco, Kelli was with another friend of ours who insisted that the 3 of us needed to take a picture as we were all exiting the store. I had that photo printed and waiting at Costco on Friday night.

From Costco (which is in Pentagon City, about a mile from Reagan airport), I took her to Gravelly Point, a park situated along the Potomac at the north end of Reagan airport. I had brought her to that spot on our 3rd date and told her that it was my favorite spot in DC. I have loved airplanes since I was 3 and I love watching them land and take off. There is a rock at Gravelly Point that we sat on and I had put my arm around her for the first time. We have gone back to that park numerous times to walk around and watch the planes.

So, on Friday, after dark and below freezing temps I took her back to Gravelly Point, I brought her to the rock we originally sat on. Nik Lingle had gone out before us and put a blanket over the rock and a second blanket over that (one that Kelli had given me). We sat there. I gave her a DC specific Moleskine journal, it had maps of DC and journal space. I had gone through and written down all the significant points in our relationship over the past year, many of our dates, etc. I then marked on the maps where those events had taken place. I told her that I loved the past year we'd had getting to know each other better in DC, exploring this city together, growing in our relationship here.

At that point, I pulled out a second Moleskine city journal, this one was for Rome (almost every time Kelli asks me where I would go if I could anywhere right now, I say I'd go to Italy), I told her that as much as I've enjoyed our time in DC, I want to go many other places with her too. To which she responds in an excited way, "are we going to Rome with our friends?" And I said, "no, I'm not talking about going places with friends, I'm talking about going places just the two of us, but we can't do that right now." At which point, I had pulled a ring box out of my pocket, got down on my knees beside the rock and asked her to marry me. We stood by the rock in the cold for another 15-20 minutes, letting the moment sink in. Nik came out of hiding with a bouquet of flowers I had for her, yellow flowers with one red rose in the middle (I had not purchased roses for her before).

Next, I took her to Ruth's Chris in Crystal City, which sits on the 11th floor of an office building and overlooks the airport and all of DC, we had a corner/window table that is the best table in the restaurant. Had a fabulous dinner and conversation. We left there at 10pm.

Prior to the proposal I had called 2 of our friends at church and sent them a list of about 30 other friends at the church that I thought Kelli would want to see after the engagement, and I had them set-up a surprise party around 10:15pm on Friday. So, after dinner I brought her to the Dever's house, where all these friends were gathered. Mark and his wife Connie met us when we came into the door, and said to Kelli, "ok, why don't we go sit down in the family room and you guys can tell us the whole story", when we walked through the door to the family room there was the big group of friends waiting for us. We told them our engagement story, and then talked with everyone until after midnight.