Big news – it’s official!!

Travis officially proposed to me! I am soooo psyched!

Wow, well it happened super late Friday night/early Saturday morning…Travis had come down to Indy since Thursday night thanks to his quarterly work meeting. Then our plan was to go to West Lafayette once I got off work for the weekend – he would cover a high school game that night, we’d stay overnight for the Purdue-Michigan game and go to the Neon Cactus. We had to get a hotel room at the last minute too because everything was booked.

So anyway, after Travis finished his article for the Kokomo paper, we checked in to our hotel, and got on our way to the Neon Cactus, the best local bar at Purdue. I had only been there once, and I was excited to be going back again. I will say it was a lot more fun this time than the first time…We met up with a couple of his Purdue friends, but soon they left us to our own devices…We stayed quite a bit, going between the main dance floor and the participation live piano bar. It was wonderful, a super relaxation from the hectic work week.

Once we left the Cactus, we had been walking close to the Purdue campus and on our way back to our hotel room. That was when Travis went to the back of his Jeep, and opened up this cooler he’s got in the back (that’s for a friend’s wedding present). Anyway, I’m like, “what are you doing?” And I notice he pulled out a small black gift bag with purple tissue paper. All I thought was, “oh he got me a present, how sweet!” It was then that I realized the bag said “Strickler Jewelers”. I gasped and started crying because I knew then what it was. He handed it to me, got on one knee, and just said “Liz R***, will you marry me? Will you be my wife?” He was crying and so was I – all I could keep saying was “Yes yes yes yes yes, oh my God yes!”

My ring is beautiful….yellow gold band, simple style with a round solitaire, just what I wanted!! Lots of sparkle and shine and fire!

He said so many other wonderful things to me, about our commitment and our love, and all I could do was cry and tell him I love him….He told me how he had a speech all ready for me, for when he gave me the ring while we were in Florida in two weeks, but that he couldn’t wait. He told me that he wanted to give it to me at his old Purdue apartment, because that was where he first first talked to me on the computer (so where we first “met”), but since obviously someone else lives there now, that the Purdue campus in itself was close enough to that. Plus tomorrow will be exactly a week from when I moved to Indy, making this weekend perfect. It was definitely a surprise, which I know was important to him too. I had figured out the Florida plan, and even though he had said he had to think of a new day, I still suspected I would get it then. But this came out of impulse, so it was a total shock!

*tmi warning*

Then came the amazing engagement sex!

*tmi warning ended*

Saturday Purdue ripped our hearts out again with another loss, this time to Michigan. It was another game where they beat themselves, but while it was still fun, it’s weird to see a team that was doing so well now making so many mistakes. I’m glad the game was fun though, despite the outcome. The rain held up in time for kickoff and the sun actually came out for a bit.

And aside from that, our weekend was just togetherness and football, and enjoying our official engagement, yay!

I can’t believe it! I never thought this would happen to me, and now it has. Just writing about it brings tears to my eyes. I’m so lucky to have him. I’m gonna be a Mrs. !!