Heffe Gets Down on One Knee!

Hello, new world! I feel I left my last post with a cliffhanger and a lot of emotional bombs dropped... Here's to a little clarity, and mostly why my aforementioned "big moves" were all worth it...

Heffe's Proposal:)

Setting the Stage: 

It was Friday, October 5, 2012. Heffe and I were planning to travel out of town immediately after I got out of school for the day- the dance team I used to coach was performing promptly at 7pm... We were also going to visit to my parents (planning on staying with them for the night, then coming back to our home city the next day)... since it's usually an 1 1/2 drive, and figuring Friday traffic in the mix, we needed to jet outta town! Heffe was taking a half day off work to "get ready for our trip and make sure he was on time"... sneakster. :)

I was actually excited to spend the driving time with Heffe... things had been pretty crazy for both of us at work lately, and we hadn't gotten to spend much time with each other. He had to spend long nights taking work home and didn't have a lot of time to spare... or so I thought;) 

Heffe sent flowers to my school, purple somethings (yeah I SUCK at flowers, but they were so pretty!!!) with the little note, "Happy Early Birthday, I love you!" :) :) :) (My b-day is actually October 12.) He's a reeeeeeeeal good one. :)

K. So. I, like most teachers I've met, canNOT pull myself away from my job. My best planning ideas come at the most inopportune times, and I left school WAY later than I had thought... and of course, I had NOTHING ready for our trip (duh, we had done long distance for such a long time, I figured myself an EXPERT on packing for an overnight trip... especially since we were only going to be "out" for Friday night... so I changed clothes and packed sweats and yoga pants... we'd be with my family, I wanted to be comfy!). By the time I'd been to my apartment, thrown together an overnight bag, stopped at Starbucks (we needed pumpkin spice lattes for the drive!), and went to pick up Heffe, we, I, was running LATE. 

Setting the stage:

The "new" song at the time "Wanted" by Hunter Hayes came on the radio as I pulled into Heffe's apartment complex. So I blasted it, had a sip of my pumpkin spice latte, and had a nice little romantic moment to myself. I was ready to give Heffe a big fat hug and smooch as soon as he jumped into my car!

So. Finally, I get to Heffe's. I texted him that I was there and for him to move it or lose it! He, instead, came out to my car and insisted I come into his apartment. <Enter Crazy Anissa's inner monologe: This kid had a half day off work. He obviously had time to get his hair cut and dress himself up nice, if he's not fully packed for a freaking overnight, I'm going to go ballistic.> So I begrudgingly left my pumpkin spice latte and Hunter Hayes and speed walked into his place. 

Heffe is a good one. :) He knows exactly how to calm me down and slow me down when I'm feeling a bit spastic on any given day, but MAN, having wrapped birthday presents waiting for me was just not what I expected when I walked into his place. I can honestly say (and he knows this!) that the thought entered my mind to just leave the presents until tomorrow because we were going to miss my dance team's performance! But, I token, "awwwww"-ed at them, and tried to stay in the moment, all the while in the back of my head, I'm screaming "HEFFE, we need to leeeeeeeeeeeave!" Heffe said that he knew the last few weeks had been rough, so he wanted to give me my presents early! Sneakster Heffe knows that I canNOT resist my birthday or presents. He got me good!

Heffe went on to tell me that he bought me one of the presents, and made me the other one. I chose to open the bought present first, which ended up being a few of my favorite Philosophy bath and body products. Yum! Those would have been enough. Heffe knows what I like! :) <Enter Crazy Anissa's inner monologue: Aww, cute, okay LET'S GO!> 

Okay, now it's time to open the "made" present. I unwrap the present, and it's a scrap book. Seriously? O.M.G. Heffe's an even better one than I thought! The past year had really taken its toll on "us", being long distance, our futures up in the air, our relationship up in the air... well, he'd documented the past year of our life together, starting with January 2012. He had saved ticket stubs, restaurant receipts, taken pictures from the parks we used to run around while training for the marathon, gotten pics from his and my family... I mean, this MAN bought SCRAPBOOK supplies and made me something so invaluable. :) 

<Enter Crazy Anissa's inner monologue: Holy crap. This is big. Something's happening. Why am I nervous? Oh yeah, I'm nervous because WE'RE SO LATE and I need to break land speed records to make it in time to see the dance team. Heffe, why are you so good to me!!!>

So as I'm flipping through the pages, a little faster than I should, I realize the last page, the page for "October", is just pictures of us. I cannot help but start to tear up, we've been through a lot together, getting to know each other and just having fun, it's so nice to see pictures of our life together. I was so caught up in the moment that I didn't notice (which probably gave Heffe time to change position...) until after a few minutes that along the edge of the page, he had written, "Will you marry me?" :):):):):):):):):):):)

When I noticed that, I don't even think I moved. I looked up and he was already down on one knee and started to actually propose outloud. 

Wow, my hands are shaking just writing about this!! 

The moment was so magical, and I'll never forget the look on his face, and how we just stood there in his kitchen hugging each other and crying (me, duh) and not even saying a word to each other. :) 

So we then popped some champagne, and the rest is history! Heffe confessed that he'd been blowing me off the past few days to finish the scrapbook, and had actually taken most of the day off to prepare for this evening. He was getting anxious because I was running late... hello, you've been dating me for awhile, punctuality is NOT something I'm known for! He ALSO told me that he had driven the 1 1/2 hours to my parents house when I was at dance camp with said dance team, and asked for their permission to marry me. (My mom and dad later told me that they thought he was nervous but he was so respectful and honest and DUH they obviously gave their blessing!) Heffe ALSO told me that he would be driving on our long trip, and I proceeded to make phone calls to all my closest family and friends to let them know our Big News. :) We made it in time to see the dance team perform, and the girls were the first people to see me with my ring!!!!! It's so shiny! :) Heffe did GOOOOOD.

Sidenote about the ring... we had NEVER gone to look at rings before. I think the farthest the "ring conversation" ever got was "I like her ring" or "That ring is disgustingly tacky" or when I had been obviously overserved, I'd blurt out to his family, "Yeeeeeah I want to get married, and I want this!" :) No one, not even me, really, knew my ring size. Heffe asked my mom, who definitely guessed my big Italian fingers were WAY bigger than they actually are... the ring was literally falling off my finger :) The next day, we went to a random jewelry store to get a sizer for it until we could go to THE jewelry store to get it properly fitted. We waited a few weeks, though, I wanted to make sure everyone saw my big, shiny, solitaire round cut DIAMOND:) :) :) :) :) 

If you look closely at this pic, you can see the first reflections it made from the sun... I love it!

So another surprise that Heffe had for me was that he not only drove me around the entire city to see a lot of my friends and share our Big News, but he arranged a big dinner with my entire family... parents, brothers, sisters-in-law, nephews, and my Nan (who was TICKED, by the way, that she was the only one in the family that didn't know Heffe was proposing... whatever, she can't keep a secret, haha! :)). 

So, in keeping with the trend of the weekend, Heffe made EVERYTHING about me, and even tagged along (and helped me!) with me shopping to find something other than yoga pants to wear to dinner, and here we are! I'm holding The Scrapbook. :) Clutching it with the jaws of life, really. :) He cleans up so good! :)

So, after a weekend filled with lots of excitement, we had to get back to reality. Aaah. But this reality is just a little sweeter than the days before. :) 

Aaaaaah. :) 

So until next time... This is me. Bein me. :) 

Cheers. :)