Engagementversaries!

 

Last Saturday marked 13 years since Ryan proposed to me! Teena commented on Saturday that she hadn’t seen the proposal video before, and I figure there may be one or two of you reading along who weren’t hanging out here 13 years ago!

                If that’s you, you can read the whole love story in this series of posts, but I thought today I might tell you a quick story you might not know about the backstory to Ryan’s on-air proposal. I don’t think I’ve ever told this story here, but I have also written lots of posts over the last 13 years, so if I have and this is a repeat, I apologize.

                (Also if you are new here and don’t know, back in those days, I worked at WBCL Radio as a producer and on-air personality.)

                Ryan had been trying to think of a creative way to propose and came up with a few ideas, and his favorite was proposing on the air. He had to find a way to talk to Lynne Ford when I wasn’t around, so one day when he knew both Lynne and I were on the air with Mid-Morning, he called the station’s main number and asked to talk to Amy, who was one of my dearest friends at the station. He heard me talk about her all the time and knew she knew all about our relationship. When Amy answered, he told her what he wanted to do (swearing her to secrecy) and asked if she could help him get in touch with Lynne. Amy gave him Lynne’s cell number and Ryan called her when he knew she and I were not together.

                He told Lynne the plan and she loved the idea but felt she needed to clear it with the station director. He was all for it – as long as we could record it and share it on social media. Ryan loved that, because he knew I’d want pictures and video anyway!

                From there it snowballed into a grand-scale production to pull off this huge surprise without me knowing. And I worked with a bunch of good people, because they made it happen!

                It was the sweetest day, and because we loved it so much, we celebrate every year on October 4^th! Today I thought I would reminisce with you about the fun we have had celebrating this through the years!

2012: This was our actual engagement day. Not only did the station help orchestrate and document the event, but they hosted a little party for us after the show…with cake and everything!

2013: One year later…we went out for dinner at a little BBQ restaurant near our home, and then we came home to watch Dumb and Dumber. (Ryan’s choice!) I had picked up cookies from The Cookie Cottage in Fort Wayne. (One of my coworkers had gifted us cookies from there for our wedding rehearsal, so it was a nod to that.)

2014: Our Marion house was on the market, and our agent hosted an open house on our engagementversary, so we were kicked out for the day. We went to the IWU Homecoming parade and toured the campus just for fun, and then we went to an apple orchard for dumplings. (It was a terrible experience; the restaurant was also a winery and because we weren’t drinking, we didn’t get great service.) We capped off the night with apple pie chai from the IWU coffee shop – a drink I still dearly miss.

2015: This engagementversary was on a Sunday, and we were part of the coffee bar hospitality team! We spent the morning making and serving coffee, went to church, and then watched the Colts play. Later in the day, we went to the park where we had our engagement pictures taken, played frisbee, and drank frappes!

2016: I was sick with a cold on this engagementversary, so I probably wasn’t the most fun date. By this time I was a stay-at-home wife, so I spent the day working from home, Ryan spent the day at work, and that evening we hosted company for dinner. (I think it was a Tuesdays-at-the-Table night. Remember those?)

2017: This was one of my FAVORITE celebrations. It was the fifth engagementversary, so we wanted to do something a little extra. It was also the year we did the alphabetically-inspired dates, and this one was the Romantic Rendezvous at a Rooftop Rotating Restaurant. We had dinner at the Eagle’s Nest in Indianapolis. I loved that restaurant, that meal, that view. It was so much fun. And they gave us dessert on the house because we were celebrating!

2018: We were dog-sitting Ryan’s cousin’s dog (Deuce) on this year’s celebration, so he crashed it! We kept it low-key this year. I made lasagna for our lunch, and Ryan treated me to jumbo cupcakes from J. Edwards. (I miss that place more than I should.) I made a special dinner, we took Deuce for a walk, and I baked cookies!

2019: This was a fun year! We went to a local corn maze, found our way through, and then went out to eat (gift card) and ended the night with a walk in the park!

2020: We were at WillowBridge by this time, and we were on duty the day of our engagementversary. It was a Sunday, so we went to church and after we came home, we sneaked away to DeBrand to share a sundae and some coffee. It was the sweetest (pun intended) little getaway before returning to the busyness of work!

2021: We didn’t want to miss another engagementversary because of work, so we purposely scheduled ourselves a weekend day for this year’s celebration. We were dog-sitting Phoebe at the time, so we dropped her off at our friends’ house (thanks, Wayne and Shari!) and then enjoyed an outing to…WBCL to see the very place where it all began! We went out for pizza and then picked up Phoebe to head back to WillowBridge. That night, our friends dropped off their 2 year old to stay with us while they went to the hospital to have a baby! Engagementversary+  dogsitting + babysitting = fun!

2022: By the time this year rolled around, we were living in Bluffton and were puppy parents ourselves! It was a work day for us, but that night we took Lexi for a walk on the river walk and then picked up Blizzards for dinner!

2023: It was a beautiful thing that our engagementversary fell on the same night as our church’s Steele Farms night! We spent the evening enjoying hot dogs with our church family, and a stroll through the corn maze.

2024: Ryan planned this one all on his own! He found a really cool orchard down near Richmond, and on Friday nights they had free live music! We went to hang out, listen to music, and enjoy coffee and apple dumplings. SO FUN!

2025: Come back tomorrow to see what we did this year!