THE ENGAGEMENT STORY!

(Sorry about the length of the post, you can read the whole thing if you want… you only get engaged once people)

(Just kidding, we’re not sorry about it Enjoy!)

I am pretty sure that this will be the first and only time that someone other than Kendall has written on her Blog… Since getting engaged is a momentous occasion we are writing a duel blog. My comments (josh’s) will be in the regular font and Kendall’s will be in italics.

Just enjoy the show.

Kendall came to visit my family on Saturday the 27^th, we spent Saturday shopping in Seattle and playing board games. Sunday my mom made a lovely dinner before Kendall and I got on the train to go back to Portland. I cleverly hid a duffle bag, filled with three dozen individual roses, in the train car behind us. I had the ring in the pocket of my jacket and sat down next to Kendall ready for an awkward train ride…

I didn’t really notice anything different about the way Joshua was acting for the first hour of the train ride. I could tell he was worried about something before we left, but didn’t think anything of it. Until later, anyway.

I tried to act as normal as possible and thought that I was doing a pretty good job of hiding any feelings of discomfort I was having. I was particularly grateful for the onboard movie that allowed me to concentrate on something other than sitting still.

About an hour into the train ride I started noticing some things. The first thing was how Josh’s hand left his right jacket pocket about twice in that hour. Second, he was getting visibly agitated and seemed pretty incapable of paying attention to something for too long. The real give away was his body temperature. He was getting warmer by the minute, and wouldn’t trade me spots or take off his jacket despite my 20 minutes of cajoling.

Finally after we had left the train station in Kelso Washington I decided that the time was right to make my move. I told Kendall that I was going to use the restroom and take off my jacket (because of his obvious near heat stroke) and put it with my bag in the car behind ours.

I grabbed my stored duffle bag and explained to the woman sitting in the first row of the car behind us m plan, and asked her to hand Kendall a single red rose with a note attached to it in “5 long minutes.” I then made my way down the aisle and passed out the flowers through the seven cars I had to travel through to get to the back of the train. When I reached the end of the last car I dropped the duffle bag to my side and waited for my beautiful girlfriend to make her way towards me.

Approximately 100 hours (20 minutes) after Joshy left, a girl walked through the train door into our car, looked at me, and asked if I was Kendall. I said I was, and she handed me a single red rose with a note attached. I opened the letter and it read something along the lines of “Merry Christmas, I love you, I have your Christmas present for you if you want to come get it! I’m at the back of the train, please come find me. Bring the rose.”

I stood up (quite happily) and proceeded to walk through the car door to the back of the train, mildly embarrassed about all the cars I was going to have to walk through. The minute I stepped into the next car, people started handing me roses. Nearly all the passengers in aisle seats handed me roses, many people saying, “Congratulations” “Good luck!” and even some, “yaaay!”’s. It felt like it took about 3 minutes per car, but I’m sure it was only 30 to 40 seconds. I walked through 7 cars worth of passengers, and each car had around 50 people in it. By the end of the train I had 3 dozen roses; I could barely hold all of them.

I walked through the last glass door into a small compartment at the back of the train where my Joshua waited. We hugged, and talked a little bit, then he gave me a small box wrapped in a Subway wrapper. It was my Christmas present! I unwrapped it, and Joshua said all sorts of lovely romantic things, my heart melted a little bit, and he got down on one knee, and asked if I would marry him. It was honestly the most beautiful/romantic/happiest moment of my life.

Of course, I said yes and Joshua put the ring on my finger (it looked dang good in those train lights). We hugged and kissed and talked for couple more minutes, then started the walk back to our own car. As soon as the other passengers noticed we were walking through we got a round of applause and a couple congratulations. This continued through the remaining 6 trains of cars, all cars applauding and congratulating us.

It was hilarious to watch as we hugged in the back of the train the amount of people who were leaning out into the aisle taking pictures on their cell phones and making “oh my gosh” faces. When we finally got the courage to walk back to our car we held hands and made our way along the train. Every train that we went through people clapped, stood, and said congratulations.

Perhaps the highlight of the entire experience (other than the woman of my dreams agreeing to be with me forever) was when we went through the snack car and the man behind the counter asked if I would like to make an announcement. I got on the intercom system and said something along the lines of, “Hey everyone, thanks to all of you who held flowers, just wanted to let you know SHE SAID YES!” I swear on my life, the entire train cheered.

We are so excited to be engaged, and can’t wait to start a long and happy life together. It’s taken a long time to get here, but every second of the way has been worth it, and we wouldn’t do it any other way. Thanks for reading, we love you all!!