4th Engagementversary

I was still struggling to wake up yesterday morning when Ryan whispered in my ear, "Happy Engagementversary."

All the points, right there. He remembered even before I was coherent!

Four years ago yesterday, Ryan proposed to me in one of the most well-coordinated surprises of my life. I love reliving the moments of that day. I was blissfully on the air, unaware that literally ten feet away, Ryan was crawling underneath a window to get into place without me seeing him.

Now that is love, right there.

And at the appointed time {or rather, several minutes past it, because apparently I talked too much}, he burst through the studio door and got down on one knee to ask me to be his:

He brought with him the exact kind of ring I had told him less than a week earlier I'd love to have. I didn't know his own design of that ring was purchased and sitting in his room at his house, waiting to be given to me.

He said a whole treasure trove of beautiful things to me and then he asked me to marry him, and of course I said yes!

So that was four years ago. I had bad roots, questionable nail polish, and a smile that wouldn't quit. My office threw us a party, complete with a cake I was too excited to eat, and Lynne shooed us out the front door for lunch at an Italian restaurant in downtown Fort Wayne.

Yesterday I was battling a cold, complete with sniffing, sneezing, and coughing, and when Ryan came home for lunch, I served him healthy Hot Pocket leftovers. He spent the day at work and I spent the day in my home office, writing and cleaning up before company came for dinner. It wasn't the same dazzling sort of day, but it was still a beautiful day.

On the day of our engagement, we just wanted to be married. We wanted to savor the joys that come with being engaged, but mostly we just wanted to get through that phase so we could be together every single day. Wake up together, do life together, and come home together without parting to separate towns before it was time to sleep.

And now we have that. I love the comfort level that comes with it, but I don't ever want to lose sight of the days when we longed for that more than anything. I may have been Sneezy, Coughy, and Sniffly all rolled into one, and I may have been in ratty workout clothes when he came home for lunch, but we were right there together doing life. And sometimes life is colds and leftovers and questionable hair.

I watched {more than once, I confess} our proposal video and paused to be thankful all over again that Ryan saw something good and worthy in me and that he chose me to be his. I'm grateful he took a risk. I'm grateful for this life we share. It's by no means perfect, but it's filled with gratitude and much laughter. Yesterday, in all its lack of purposeful celebratory splendor, was still a day of much celebration because it represented another milestone in the story of us.

And the story of us took a giggly turn yesterday. Wanna hear?

While we ate lunch, I pulled out the proposal video and had Ryan watch it. I was listening to his words while he watched, and I heard him get to the part about how he thought I was so beautiful and amazing, and right about then, he piped up with, "Who's THAT girl?"

My head shot up so fast, and I said, "WHAT!!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?"

He looked genuinely confused, pointed at the video and said, "You don't look anything like this anymore."

I laughed SO HARD. I said, "Well did you hear what you were saying when you said that?" He paused for a minute, realized the timing and cracked up.

Later that afternoon, he texted me, Thanks for being the woman I proposed to at half the size. 

Oh, he makes me laugh. 

The Shafferland Shuffle

Pausing at the start of today's shuffle to wish my Dad a very happy birthday! :)

* Last Sunday was our 3rd engagementversary...and we started the celebration by helping to serve coffee at the little cafe in our church. It was our first time to help with that and we really enjoyed it! That afternoon, we went for a walk in the park and Ryan taught me to play frisbee; I was terrible, but I got better! And we rounded out the day with frappes and coffee, because our addiction holds fast!. :)

* Monday I helped serve a funeral dinner at our church, and while the circumstance prevents me from saying I enjoyed it, I did enjoy being able to help in a time of need. It was such a beautiful day, and I surprised Ryan with a lemon cake when he got home from work, and we enjoyed our dinner out in the pirogi. It's sad, really, how little time we spent out there this summer. :( And Ryan mowed. It had been something like a month since he had to mow. I guess that made up for the start of the summer when he did it about twice a week!

* Tuesday was my big bad dentist day, so I spent the morning distracting myself with writing projects, and then after I survived the filling, I rewarded myself with a shopping trip to Hobby Lobby, where I bought the fancy pants metal monogram for my Pinterest project. Ryan let me take it easy that  night, as I had a decent amount of jaw pain, and he even made popcorn for us while we watched TV - to be chewed on the opposite side of my mouth, of course.

* Wednesday I found a praying mantis on our window! How fun is that! It's the little things that bring a smile. :) I enjoyed my time with Bible study ladies, and am learning so much. It's nice to be a participant! Ryan and I went for our last training run, pre-race, and we both had a good last hurrah.

* I had a special treat on Thursday - my friend Amy came to spend the day with me! She had a day off work and decided to hang out with me! We went to Kokomo and I took her out to lunch, we visited Ryan, we went out for cupcake treats, and she even surprised me with a box of Rise n Rolls! We had a great time! And Ryan's mom came over that night to take our pictures for our Christmas cards. We miss long evenings filled with light! We had to hurry, but we got it done and had fun.

* Friday I hunkered DOWN and did writing projects all day. It's the first time in a long time that I have absolutely exhausted myself from writing. {Yes, it really can happen.} My one break in the day was watching the Little House on the Prairie reunion on TV that I stumbled upon at lunch time. Ohhhhh how I loved that Albert Ingalls. Anyway. After a long day of work, I was so glad that Ryan had plans to bring home ribs for dinner. They are so good. There's a church that makes them for a fundraiser, and he loves them so much, he always gets some!

* Yesterday was RACE DAY!!!! We ran our 5K and I'll give you the full scoop later, but let's just say we had a great race. Ryan KILLED THE THING and I didn't get killed BY the thing, so it was good all the way around. It was fun to be back in our hometown, see friends, and enjoy {yes, I said enjoy!} the run. And a bonus - my mom came to cheer us on! I was glad she came. :)

The Third Engagementversary

I told you last week about remembering back to three years ago when Ryan surprised me with a proposal. Our actual engagementversary fell on Sunday, and it was a day full of the fun, the new, and the maddening.

A few weeks ago, in the church bulletin, we read that they needed some volunteers to help at the coffee station on Sunday mornings. {Our church offers fresh brew and hot chocolate and tea on Sunday mornings.} We decided that would be a fun way we could serve together, and we signed up. Sunday was our first time to do that, and we had a BLAST.

I had taken a crash-training course in the middle of the week, but Ryan hadn't even been inside the church kitchen before, so we went down a few minutes early and I showed him where they kept all the supplies. He was excited to run the big coffee grinder and even more excited at the biggest brewing station we'd ever seen up close.

We served alongside another woman we only just met that morning, and it took a few minutes to get our system all figured out, but we did. Ryan did the brewing and the heavy lifting, our new friend kept us on track and made the whole operation run seamlessly, and I kept the main line tidied up and greeted the in-need-of-caffeine.

After church, the Colts played, and I have to say...it was the most excruciating game for an engagementversary afternoon. By the time the game slid into overtime, I was yelling at the TV, "You've had three and a half hours!!! Could you not just pick either a win or a lose in that amount of time? Why are you doing this to me???"

They finally squeaked out their painful, exhausting win, and we moved on to the next adventure. I really wanted to go do something, so we drove to the park, intending to walk through the beautiful gardens.

Except...they were closed for a wedding. I guess I can't really get cranky about people celebrating a wedding on the day we celebrated our engagement, right?

Ryan brought along a frisbee and we headed to the open green space of the park so your Bekah girl could learn to play frisbee. Yes. It is true. I am 37 years old and can't play frisbee. {And if you ever watched me try to throw one from the stage during my WBCL years, you are not arguing with me right now because you've seen the madness in action.}

It took a while, but I got into it, and I got better!!!

We worked up quite a thirst playing frisbee, so of course...frappes. {Excuse my look. I'm not sure what's happening there.}

And I had one more little surprise before the end of the day. Months ago, my friend Jeri was out on business and found these coffee cups. She sent me a picture and I had to have them in real life. So in honor of the commitment made on the original engagement day....

Because I Said Yes

Sunday, according to the date on the calendar, is a significant mile-marker for Shafferland. But because I'll be busy filling you in on our week come Sunday, I'm writing about it today...the day-of-the-week-on-the-calendar when my life changed for always.

Three years ago, on a Thursday...Thursday, October 4th to be exact...this happened:

Three years ago, in a moment that I completely expected...and completely did NOT expect on that day...Ryan showed up at the station, got down on one knee, and asked me to be his.

And. I. Said. Yes.

I said yes before the question was even completely out of his mouth. I said yes in front of twenty people pressed up against windows, watching. I said yes in front of thousands more, listening over their radios. People who later told me they sat in their car at the grocery store, delaying the trip inside for food, because they wanted to hear the rest. People who sat in their garages, not ready yet to go inside the house, because they might miss something.

I said yes to a man who said he wanted to be with me every single day and every single night, and minus that one whitewater rafting trip I gifted him {and subsequently sobbed all the way through}, he has been. Every single day and every single night.

I said yes to a man who said he didn't know what was ahead and he didn't care - he just wanted to be with me. And in the three years that have followed, he's mopped up a million tears, calmed more than his share of anxious moments, and walked me through the recovery of a couple of surgeries. He's given me new experiences {shout out to ziplining, segway tours, horseback riding, a weeklong cruise and more}, and he's made our house a home, pouring months of sweat and some blood into this property.

I said yes to a man who said he loved my writing and most recently has proven the truth of that by making it possible for me to quit my job so I can pursue it more fully. That's a gift most people don't have, and I know it.

I said yes to a man who didn't say in the proposal that he would love me as Christ loves the church, but he has done that very thing every single day.

In that moment, I was aware life was about to change forever, and I tried with everything in me to pay close attention so I didn't miss a thing.

I missed a few things.

But thankfully it was all heavily documented, and I've watched it over and over to learn what I missed in the awe of the moment.

What I didn't miss was that this very moment captured God's answer to my most long-standing request. To be chosen.

So on this day, I both celebrate the joy of remembering this moment when I said yes, and I commit to praying over each of you who are still waiting for this moment. I've heard from some of you even very recently, and I know your hearts hurt in the way mine did before this day three years ago. You hurt because you just want to be chosen. You hurt because you see no answer anywhere in sight. And I don't know what the answer is for you. I don't know when or where God intends to bring the fulfillment of your request. But today I pray for you because I know the wait is long and hard. And I know you want to be found faithful in the waiting.

You're loved. And for those of you who ache for it, I pray for the day when that love extends to a man on one knee telling you out loud...you're loved in a way you've never known before.

Engagementversary Part 2

Sorry our day was so long that it requires this much time to tell you about it!

One of Ryan's patients told him about an apple orchard up near Peru, Indiana, that had really good apple dumplings. Don't need to tell us twice!!  So we drove to Peru, got lost thanks to Chloe {Ryan's GPS.} She had us lost to the tune of ELEVEN MILES. Good grief, Chloe.

Finally arrived!

By this time in the afternoon it was still crazy cold, and raining as well, so we hoped they would be open. They were definitely open...and PACKED! So many people everywhere!!

Thought we might get new living room furniture: 

 Apples, apples everywhere!

They had a barn with a little petting zoo, so we checked that out before going to look for dumplings.

 {The horse was camera shy. Looked right at us until I took the picture. Every. Single. Time.}

We went into the little restaurant for the dumplings and that was the first time our day hit a snag. When we walked inside, there was a gift shop and a wine tasting counter, so we walked past all that and stood by the "Wait here to be seated" sign at the front of the dining room. There were several empty tables, but when the hostess met us, she asked if we'd put our name in at the front door.

We hadn't, because first of all, we never saw a sign saying we needed to do that, and secondly, the front door had been crowded by people checking out at the gift shop, so we just squeezed past them. She took our name and phone number and told us it would be about 20 minutes.

How is this possible? There were about five empty tables! She said they had to call other people who had put in their names, and they could be anywhere on the property. If any of them failed to respond to the call, our names would move up.

So we sat in the {crazy hot} winery, watching the tasting.

I won't lie; I was pretty sad that we had to wait so long for dumplings and coffee, and while people from the wine tasting counter asked everyone around us if they needed anything, no one ever stopped to ask us! {Apparently it was really evident we weren't buying wine.}

About a half hour into our 20 minute wait, Ryan went to check on the progress and they said it would be about five more minutes. When we finally got called in, the room looked pretty much like it had 40 minutes earlier. We ordered a dumpling to share and some coffee.

Our dumplings and coffee ended up costing more than our lunch. Whoopsie! It was a good dessert date, and we did have fun experiencing the place. But I was really sad that it was such a hot, long wait for reasons that really didn't seem to make sense. :(

On our way home from the orchard, we stopped by the cemetery where my little nephew is buried. I hadn't been there in a couple of years:

Between the early morning, the busy day, and the cold and rain outside, we were pooped, so we came home and took a nap, and then I had one more request.

Oh yes.

Apple. Pie. Chai.

Oh baby.

McConn's fall menu is BACK! We went back to IWU and waded through the college students to get our first fall drinks of the season. Be still, my beating heart!

What a great end to the day! We topped it off with shopping for our Greentown-house-buyers and for our groceries.




Loved spending this day together!!!

Engagementversary Part 1

Saturday was our 2 year engagementversary, and in a rare twist of wonderful, both of us had the entire day off work. So I declared it a day of celebration, and what fun we had! SO much fun, actually, that it might take 2 days to tell you! {Translation: it will.}

We found out a few days before the big day that our realtor wanted to have an open house at the home we live in, so we didn't really get to sleep in. We got up early, finished up the cleaning that needed to be done, and prepared to be kicked out of the house by 10 a.m.

But Ryan was a sweetheart and decided we needed a breakfast treat. One of our favorites is to get breakfast at Subway. It's seriously one of the most filling and simultaneously cost effective breakfasts we've ever found. So while I finished up at home, he went out for breakfast, and we ate together in our dining room!

We got the realtor all set up in our house, and then we headed out for stop #1 of the day: IWU Homecoming.

This wasn't a big number year for me at homecoming, and Ryan didn't go to IWU, so we had to make our own homecoming experience. But fortunately, we're good at that sort of thing. :) Last year they started having a parade. It's not very big {yet} but it's kind of a cool thing. I find parades fun, anyway.

So we made our way toward the parade route and waited for them! A really nice man took our picture with the IWU sign. {Thanks, Random Stranger!!}

PS. Homecoming weekend is almost always ridiculous where weather is concerned. It's always either cold or raining or snowing or all of that together. This particular morning was gorgeous, but our first day of fuh-reeeeeeezing. I had on 2 shirts and 2 jackets. And a hat. And gloves. And I'm hot blooded!

Homecoming King and Queen. {We watched their coronation from a distance last week when we were out for a walk around campus!} 

 This was Ryan's favorite float. It really was cool. {Though I did wonder about the young man in shorts. You know. Since I was in four layers.}

 And this was my favorite float. HA HA HA HA HA!

 The two in the back seat of this car are friends of mine from back in the days when I attended Chapel Pike. Mike and Cindy Helvie are their names...they're missionaries, and I really appreciate their commitment to their marriage. {They renew their vows every five years, I think it is. I got to attend one of those ceremonies and found it extremely moving and encouraging.}

 I want this to drive to work.

After the parade ended, we headed to the brand new science and nursing building that just opened. We've watched {from a distance} as they built it over the last couple of years. What an undertaking! Ryan felt that since he'd been supervisor #1 on the building {??} it seemed only right that he go inside and check out the finished product. You know. To make sure they did it right.

We went through the nursing side first. I didn't take any pictures, but it was really cool. I've always known IWU has a great nursing program, but seeing all their new labs and simulation dummies and state of the art hospital/doctor office equipment was really cool. {The dummies could breathe and bleed and cry and talk and foam at the mouth and one can even deliver a baby. That's not too shabby.}

After that tour, I took Ryan to see a newly renovated classroom. I took Earth Science in that room way back in the day - when it looked way more 70's and not nearly so modern. It's pretty cool now. Of course, all of this was lost to Mr. Hey-Aren't-These-Anatomy-Diagrams-On-The-Board Cool?

We wanted to take a tour of the new science part of the building, but we had to wait for a while for a guide to be ready:

This part of the building is five stories tall, and the tour started out on the very top floor. It was very science-y {go figure. IT'S A SCIENCE BUILDING} so I found myself a bit more captivated by the views out the windows. :)

The top of the Christian Ministries Building...

 Library, dorms, and fountain...

 And my favorite, which will probably end up framed and hanging in our home. The prayer chapel where I prayed so long for Ryan.

After we finished the tour, we headed to Mi Pueblo for lunch, where we met up with our friends Bill and Kristin, who were in town for Homecoming. Problem: Ryan and I had a huge breakfast so we weren't super hungry. We decided to share a lunch, and it cracked me up when they brought me an extra plate. I put it in front of me and said "Welp, guess I'm on a diet!" HA!

Great time catching up with Bill and Kristin. They're foster parents and I think they said that was their first kid-free weekend in 16 months. Much deserved break for them, and I was glad for them! We had fun talking and then we set out on part two of our adventures for the day. I'll save them for tomorrow!