Poppies, Puppies, and Pearls: I'm Engaged!

For those of you that don't personally know us,Cole and I have been dating since August 2007. Yes, if you do the math that means we have been together for over 5 years and yes, that does mean we are "High School Sweethearts" even though we didn't go to the same high school.

On our cruise a couple weeks ago Cole took the big step, well the Giant Kneel and proposed to me, and it couldn't have been more adorably perfect! My boo did amazing. You see when you have been together forever its hard to surprise one another and its even harder to keep a secret from each other. (well at least it is for us...we literally tell each other everything.) In fact we have had several conversations about getting engaged and married well before it actually happened. Cole asked forever ago how I wanted him to propose, my response was "that's your thing, you decide how to do it and when to ask...but ideally it would be outside since we enjoy the outdoors so much."

He took that comment into consideration and make it ten times better! When we booked the cruise I expressed to him how excited I was to go to St. Thomas because it was were my parents honeymooned at and they always talked about how beautiful the island was. I never in a million years though that he would think to propose there.

His Proposal:
We got into St. Thomas late due to a crew member emergency our ship had to port at the port that is further away from the main town in St. Thomas. Since we had to port so far away our excursion had the option of canceling it, but we were really looking forward to our excursion so we chose to keep our excursion and get a taxi over to the main part of the island. The excursion we were looking forward to is the Skyride. The Skyride is a sky lift that takes its passenger up to paradise point, which is the highest point in St. Thomas. We got on the ride, which since I have a slight (major) fear of heights so I may or may not have had a bit of a panic attack riding up there. Although I was fearing I would die the whole way up the view on the ride up was breathtaking. When we got off the ride, there were stairs up to an outlook to where we could see the whole island, the cruise ships in port, the neighboring islands, and the beautiful downtown area. When we got up to the top it was pretty crowded so I wandered around and snapped a few photos of the gorgeous views, and then I was ready to head down to the shops and bar that was right below the look out. (I am not a huge fan of big crowds and I don't like feeling like I am in the way) I kept asking Cole if he was ready, and saying "Okay, Lets go down there!" and trying to convince Cole to go to the bottom and walk around. He kept saying, we will in a few, we need to wait on Sam and Deidre, and lets stay up here for a few more...(Clearly at the time I didn't know the plan, and I didn't know I was making it ten times harder for him to ask me.) Cole finally was like lets walk over here real quick, and I was all like Okay as long as we can go down there soon... (I know I'm obnoxious!). Then I noticed Cole was walking with his hand in his pocket...which he never does, and of course, being even more obnoxious I asked Cole why his hand was in his pocket. Literally two seconds later Cole turns to me gets down on his knee and asks me, "Will you marry me!" I literally freaked out, I was in disbelief at first (for a split second, and responded nuh-uhh, really?! really?!), I honestly barely let him get the full question out before I grabbed the ring, hugged him and cried like a baby all at the same time. Cole did an amazing job, he surprisingly kept it a secret from me, caught me completely off guard, and blew me away with how romantic and adorable his proposal was! I am a very happy, very proud and very excited fiance!