Well, now you will all finally discover why I have been such a slacker at blogging for nearly the past year......I was busy falling in love!
I met Michael Keith Ritchie (Mike) during training in July 2009 in DC. We had both been assigned to work at the U.S. Embassy in Caracas. We got to know each other a little bit during our first year in Venezuela (though not too much, because I decided my best course of action was ignoring him at work, so nobody could corner me and ask me if I liked him, which I did :) We started dating almost a year ago (so glad he had the gumption to ask me out), and tried to keep it on the down-low as best we could, though I think towards the end pretty much everyone at the embassy knew.
My 2 year tour in Venezuela ended on October 1st, and Mike took his R&R to coincide with my trip home.
We visited New Mexico (the land of my birth!), and met up with his family in Albuquerque for the annual hot air balloon festival. We spent a day in Santa Fe, then flew to Phoenix (where Mike is from) to spend time with his family and see the sights! Mike is an ASU grad, so we spent some time in Tempe, ate way too much good American (and Mexican) food, saw downtown Phoenix, the Capitol, a desert botanical garden, and lots more. Then we drove up to Sedona and saw more beautiful desert scenery.
Then we headed to Utah. The original plan was to go to DC for him to be able to meet my family, but my parents were out in Utah for BYU's homecoming events (of course!). We went to the homecoming football game, and Mike pulled my Dad aside to ask his permission to marry me.......I think I was more nervous than Mike! But they had a good chat while Mom and I waited in the stands. Our schedule was so packed in Utah, meeting siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents on both sides, that the only time available for a proposal was Sunday morning (I told Mike I'd set aside a few hours for him).
So.......we were both so exhausted from all of our travels, that when Mike kept saying at the football game "I'm about ready to go," I didn't think anything of it (even though we were only up by 10 at that point, and I shouldn't have felt comfortable leaving with so small a difference in scores). Even though we left a little early, we got up to his brother's place in Salt Lake pretty late. I worked on getting my giant duffel bag out of the trunk while Mike was fumbling around in his backpack (he says he dropped the ring box, but luckily I was too tired to notice). We get to the front door, and he drops my bag and starts fumbling around in his jacket pocket. I think he's getting his phone out to call his brother, so as not to wake his niece up. But then he says "go ahead, I think it's open." So I open the door, knock a little, call out "hello?" Hm, no one's there. But there were candles lit on the table, and Frank Sinatra playing.....what a nice home! Haha, Mike calls out "turn around...." So I turn around, and there he is on one knee, and he proposed to me right there on the doorstep. I said yes! And then about passed out from the shock. Not from saying yes, that was a given. But I was SO SURE it was going to be the next day. There just wasn't any other time that would have worked! Mike's brother and sister in law had, under Mike's direction, set up this beautiful romantic scene that I only saw after saying yes (I was pretty oblivious). They made our favorite dessert from Venezuela, an amazing butterscotch pudding, and had out lots of other favorites of mine, like hot chocolate, and bread and cheese, and raspberries (and lots of flowers! And rose petals scattered all over the ground!). Amazing. Not to mention the ring, that's probably another reason why I almost passed out. The proof, below:
I love you Mike!
Wow, that was a long blog post. Just trying to catch up :) Will be back with more soon!
Oh, and we're getting married in January, in the Washington D.C. LDS Temple!
