After I proposed

As of Wednesday August 10, I’m engaged to a beautiful woman named Cameron Croasdale!  I’m so excited to marry this girl!  We’ve been dating for nearly a year.  I introduced her to you in a previous update,  but here’s the story of how I proposed:

A few months ago, I started plotting how I could make a proposal special to Cameron.  There are many things that she loves.  Just a few of them are words of affirmation, flowers, and gardens.  Way back when Cameron and I were in South Africa together, I began journaling about her.  This has continued all the way until now.  I jotted down things that I noticed about her, such as her beauty, sweetness, love for the Lord, love for others, and love for kids, among other things.  The journal entries kept occurring as we spent time together.  I journaled about asking her out.  I journaled about spending time at Christmas with her family.  I journaled about our day at Disneyland together.  As I prayed about what to do for proposing, I realized that I should probably include some of these journal entries since Cameron is such a words of affirmation person.  A few weeks ago, I began to go through my journal and gather the relevant entries.  I also began to gather pictures from our times together.  Having never done a scrapbook before, I went to the local craft store and cluelessly wandered through the aisles.  I picked out a scrapbook album, colorful cardstock paper, scissors, and glue.  For the next week, I spent hours and hours carefully putting together a scrapbook mixed with journal entries and photos.

Where would I propose though?  Cameron literally stops to smell the roses all of the time.  As I prayed, I thought a garden would be perfect.  I googled “gardens”.  There was the Berkeley botanical garden, but it looked like it was just okay.  Not good enough for a proposal.  I began looking in Southern California, and on the suggestion of a few women, found the Huntington Library in San Marino.  It has 207 acres of beautiful gardens.  Perfect.

The day before I proposed, I told Cameron that we would be going somewhere as a surprise the next day.  The morning of, Cameron and I went to breakfast.  We then went to the Huntington Library, looked at an art exhibit, and then started exploring the gardens.  Cameron found a rose garden and spent a long time smelling the roses. 🙂  She was happy.  We then moved on, with me looking for the perfect place to propose the whole time, since I had never been there and only seen pictures online.  After walking around for about a half an hour, I found it.  It was a bench under a canopy of trees at the end of a gigantic lawn of picture perfect grass.  We sat down and talked for a little bit.

The view from the bench where I proposed

I then asked if I could show Cameron something.  I pulled out the scrapbook and started reading.  I read every word slowly and aloud to her.  She loved it.  It took about 20 minutes.  By the end, she was crying.  Afterward, I said a few things.  By the end of that, I was crying.  I pulled out the ring, got down on one knee, and said, “Will you marry me?”

She said, “Yes”, and kissed me.  I put the ring on her finger, and we were officially engaged.

Cameron and I are so excited to marry each other.  She is the woman of my dreams.  I can’t imagine marrying anyone else.  I’ve told God multiple times that she is such a gift from him, and that he knows what I want and need even more than I do.  My prayer is that she’ll always know that she is loved and cherished, through good times and hard times.

We’ve just begun the process of planning our wedding.  Please pray for us as we begin analyze how much money we have to work with, search out venues, and plan all of the details that we probably only know the half of.  It will be a long process, but I’m excited to plan together with her.  The thing I’m most excited about, however, is that I get to spend my life with this amazing woman.  I love the thought of living life with her.