Goin' to the Chapel, and we're...
...GONNA GET MA-A-ARRIED!!!
:-D
On Saturday, September 8th, 2007, Jason Trostle asked me to marry him -- and I said YES!!!!!
AN ENGAGEMENT STORY
We'd postponed a nice dinner together at Hemingway's Island Grill on the boardwalk at Pensacola Beach from the previous Saturday until this past Saturday, so that was no surprise. I was surprised, though, earlier in the day when Jason came home from a trip to Lowe's and Home Depot with a dozen red roses, saying, "When I made that left turn onto Navy Blvd, I passed Flowerama, and thought to myself, 'Gee, I haven't bought Chris flowers in a long time; I should get her some roses!" (He's got to be the only man on earth who would have that thought, and act on it, 5 hours before proposing!)
We got dressed a little nicer than our usual attire for, say, Hooters (nextdoor to Hemingway's), and headed out. There was a wedding reception, very small, happening on the balcony of the restaurant, overlooking the water, so we ate inside, and commented on how nice the weather was for their party, and were talking about his birthday present (cat's outta the bag: I'm taking him to the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Biloxi (3hrs from PCola, 2hrs from Mobile) for 3 nights on Columbus Day wkend, the day after his bday), and he asked what I wanted for my bday; I said I wanted a contract, written and signed, promising he'll never sell his Ducati (which he's long threatened to sell in order to pay for an engagement ring). He promised he'd never sell it. Then I ADD'd a little and suggested a beach wedding. Or a destination wedding in Manhattan (since virtually none of my family lives there anymore), or perhaps Paris (HOW COOL WOULD THAT BE?!?!).
Dinner was excellent; I had a glass of white wine, and he had two. As for our evening plans afterward, he said we'd play it by ear. After dinner and dessert (really great key lime pie), he wanted to high-tail it on outta there, and I asked, "What's the hurry? I'm not done with my wine yet!" He said, "Well, POUND IT!" As if! So about 7 minutes later (a record for me; I'm a sipper all the way), I downed the last mouthful and we headed out the door (apparently, he was concerned that we were burning daylight, LOL). We dropped off my doggie bag (of course) in the car, and I changed from my dinner heels into flip-flops (matching, of course) for our walk along the boardwalk. He saw me put on lipgloss, and said, "Oh, no! You're wearing lip gloss now!" I said it was a good color for him (nude, as it happens), and he said he'd wanted to kiss me out on the dock, where we'd had our first kiss last summer (note that this is not unusual; we go out there and share a kiss about 80% of the times we go to PCola beach).
So off we went.
The side we'd first kissed on was crowded with a few teenagers monkeying around, so we walked to the right instead. We stood under a lamppost and kissed again, and said the usual sweet and sappy stuff we say all the time that makes most people throw up in their mouths a little, so again, I didn't think anything was out of the ordinary.
Then he reached into his cargo shorts pocket and handed me a folded-in-half envelope, and said, "I want you to read this."
(Note: Remember the whole running joke we have about "Trostle University," in reference to the t-shirts his Mom had made up for his whole family. I've referred to him as the Dean of Admissions ever since, and our dating as "the application process," with a few other references here and there. Also, he was born in 1970. Read on.....)
I took it, opened the envelope, and pulled out a piece of ivory-colored paper that looked like parchment, in the form-letter format. And I read the following (I hope this picture comes out):
He'd scanned the family crest/coat of arms from The Book of Trostle that his family had (which he'd given me to read back in August 2006 -- it's been no shock from almost the 2 week mark that this was where we were headed). He'd enlarged it and used it as a watermark on the page. As I read it (aloud, per his request) with a shaky voice and an even shakier hand, I held his hand over my heart to feel its audible and rapid pounding, and kept interrupting to ask, "Is this really happening?!?!" As he reassured me that, yes, it was, in fact, really happening, I read on. When I got to the end, where it says, "P.S. - See enclosure," I turned to him, and he said a few beautiful words that my heart almost overpowered with the sound of its pounding, and got down on one knee, pulling a small box out of his pocket.
He asked me the most beautiful words:
"Christine Ellen Helmes, will you marry me?"
And, without a thought, the first thing that my mouth blurted out without checking first with my brain was, "ARE YOU SURE?!!?"
So we both laughed, and he promised me he was sure, and I showered him with "Yes"es and kisses. He stood up, asked if I'd wanted to take "that other ring" off my left ring finger (some silver ring I'd bought myself years ago, nothing special), and laughed when I told him I already did, as he was getting up (Hey, by that point, I obvs. knew where this was going!). He placed the EXQUISITE ring on my left ring finger, and looked me in the eye, and again, I said, "Yes." About 400 more times (that night, all day Sunday, and most of today. You know, just in case he didn't hear me the first time, or maybe forgot). I almost cried; I almost wet my pants; I almost threw up; I almost screamed. No, wait, I did scream. Often. And jumped up and down. And I think I told some strangers... who probably think I'm the strange one. I held him so tight and kissed him so much, and didn't really even look at the ring until after it was on my hand, that I think he thought I didn't like it (I LOVE IT. LOVELOVELOVELOVELOVE it; it's precisely, to the very last detail, what I'd told him (and, um, everyone he knows -- you know, just in case) that I wanted... but bigger. My eyes widened like saucers when I looked at it again; I nearly fell over).
The ring (since everyone I've told has asked me first and foremost to describe the ring... and pls note that we didn't have a camera when we got engaged, so there aren't any pics from that night (except 3 from my cameraphone of him stapling a dollar to the wall of McGuire's, where Alice was waitressing, with "Jason [heart] Christine... 9-8-2007... WE GOT ENGAGED TODAY!" written on it. We took these yesterday afternoon. It's a 2.07ct Ascher cut, set in platinum, with 12 brilliant-cut diamonds (6 on each side) in a thin pave setting; he had it made by a jeweler in downtown Pensacola):
After the first 10 minutes of me kissing him like we were trying to enter a Guinness Book of World Records Kissing Competition, we sat down on the dock with our feet over the edge, and called our parents.
We started with mine, whom Kara thought (and I agreed) would very likely crawl through the phone to hug us; they love Jason almost as much as I do. He's honestly the son they never had, and he actually likes them, too (despite last month's moving fiasco, even!). Dad gave me strict instructions to: a) call the Nobles (my Godparents, who also live in Annapolis) immediately, and have them call Mom and Dad right after they get off the phone with me; and b) to call my Aunts and Uncles on the East Coast (I'll call West Coast later today, on my drive home) and tell them (I got him to agree to let me wait until Sunday), and then call Mom and Dad BACK to let them know my East Coast family knew, so he could call them and basically gush and bust his buttons. :) How cute is he?!? Then, when we said we'd hang up so we could call Jason's parents, Dad said he and Mom were gonna go open a bottle of champagne (they wound up waiting for a champagne brunch with the Nobles yesterday morning, instead. I have yet to hear how drunk my Dad got, but I'm sure he was happily hammered, LOL).
Then we called Jason's Mom, Lynette, who lives in PCola with his Dad, David (they're married as long as my parents, 44 years this December), but is house-sitting for her family in Ohio. She knew on Friday what Jason had planned, and she'd called David and told him, too. We called David next, and he was so happy, as well. Lynette later called my Mom and Dad, we learned, and she told Mom she was mostly concerned that we'd get so excited that we'd accidentally throw the ring into the water! Mom assured her that, even though I hate to go underwater, I'd be down there to catch it before it hit bottom, LOL (she's right). We then called the Nobles, who were ecstatic, too. We both talked to everyone -- future in-laws (outlaws? haha). While he was on the phone, as we sat on the dock, I lifted up the back of his shirt to check for crude scars indicative of perhaps a black market kidney sale -- no dice. But he assures me the ring is paid for (and we will either have a teeny-tiny wedding soon, since the ring cost... a lot, I presume... or wait 5-7 years for a big one. I opt for something in between, personally. Maybe a year and a half...? Depends on the Marine Corps. Anyway....)
About 30 seconds after I'd said, "Yes," and before we called our families, the one and only song we'd heard the whole evening out of that wedding on the balcony of Hemingway's was, "At Last," by Etta James. I thought it was perfect. :)
Even today, I keep calling and texting him, declaring, "WE'RE GETTING MARRIED!" and squealing into the phone. It seriously caught me SO off-guard, I'm still in shock. I keep noticing my left hand, going, "Holy crap! That really happened!" I mean, we've known it for a long, long time, but I honestly thought it would be another year before he proposed. Boy, did he get me; I never, ever suspected a thing. Not even when a letter came in the mail earlier that day from a jeweler. I guess I'm a little dense...? haha.
Also, my family's reactions (Aunts and Uncles) were unanimously the same: "Does he know what he's getting into?" "He has met us on more than one occasion; did he forget? And on at least two of those occasions, some or all of us were fighting.... Is he sure?!" So you can see I'm not alone among Helmeses wondering, "IS HE SURE?!" LOL that tickled me. :)
OF NOTE:
This morning, after our run on base (daily, we're up at 5a.m. and running by 5:45 on base), he took a shower and was ready to leave while I was still in the shower... so we kissed goodbye then. Awhile later (running late, as usual), I opened my car door to find one of those red roses from Saturday afternoon, perched along the steering column in my truck, with its beautiful red bloom facing me. Since I'd already left an "I love you more!" message on his computer for him to find when he comes home for lunch, I just ran inside and took a pic (not yet uploaded). HOW PERFECT CAN THIS MAN GET?!?!?
FILE UNDER "DESTINY":
"At Last" by Etta James was supposed to be the wedding song for Richard and I, back in 2004.
And September 8th, 2007 -- 9/8/7, on purpose -- was the scheduled wedding date for me and Jason Carr.
I heard that song, and a few minutes later (I really hadn't thought about the Carr wedding stuff at all, until a little later that night), it dawned on me: that song, that date, were parts of my past that were probably meant to be associated with the happiest day of my life -- which almost wasn't. And despite kissing "many a frog," as both Kara and my Godfather have put it, I have finally found my Prince, and he has found me, as we were both destined all along (we might just have to get married on the nearby beaches of Destin, about 90 minutes from PCola!). I haven't given those pasts a lot of thought in a long time, and I don't expect I will. I just found it amusing how those two important aspects of life coincided with the happiest moment of my life to date, reiterating the thought I've elatedly repeated in my head (and out loud, usually while jumping and squealing again. A lot) eleventy-billion-and-three times since Saturday night:
I'm gonna marry that man! :)
:-D
On Saturday, September 8th, 2007, Jason Trostle asked me to marry him -- and I said YES!!!!!
AN ENGAGEMENT STORY
We'd postponed a nice dinner together at Hemingway's Island Grill on the boardwalk at Pensacola Beach from the previous Saturday until this past Saturday, so that was no surprise. I was surprised, though, earlier in the day when Jason came home from a trip to Lowe's and Home Depot with a dozen red roses, saying, "When I made that left turn onto Navy Blvd, I passed Flowerama, and thought to myself, 'Gee, I haven't bought Chris flowers in a long time; I should get her some roses!" (He's got to be the only man on earth who would have that thought, and act on it, 5 hours before proposing!)
We got dressed a little nicer than our usual attire for, say, Hooters (nextdoor to Hemingway's), and headed out. There was a wedding reception, very small, happening on the balcony of the restaurant, overlooking the water, so we ate inside, and commented on how nice the weather was for their party, and were talking about his birthday present (cat's outta the bag: I'm taking him to the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Biloxi (3hrs from PCola, 2hrs from Mobile) for 3 nights on Columbus Day wkend, the day after his bday), and he asked what I wanted for my bday; I said I wanted a contract, written and signed, promising he'll never sell his Ducati (which he's long threatened to sell in order to pay for an engagement ring). He promised he'd never sell it. Then I ADD'd a little and suggested a beach wedding. Or a destination wedding in Manhattan (since virtually none of my family lives there anymore), or perhaps Paris (HOW COOL WOULD THAT BE?!?!).
Dinner was excellent; I had a glass of white wine, and he had two. As for our evening plans afterward, he said we'd play it by ear. After dinner and dessert (really great key lime pie), he wanted to high-tail it on outta there, and I asked, "What's the hurry? I'm not done with my wine yet!" He said, "Well, POUND IT!" As if! So about 7 minutes later (a record for me; I'm a sipper all the way), I downed the last mouthful and we headed out the door (apparently, he was concerned that we were burning daylight, LOL). We dropped off my doggie bag (of course) in the car, and I changed from my dinner heels into flip-flops (matching, of course) for our walk along the boardwalk. He saw me put on lipgloss, and said, "Oh, no! You're wearing lip gloss now!" I said it was a good color for him (nude, as it happens), and he said he'd wanted to kiss me out on the dock, where we'd had our first kiss last summer (note that this is not unusual; we go out there and share a kiss about 80% of the times we go to PCola beach).
So off we went.
The side we'd first kissed on was crowded with a few teenagers monkeying around, so we walked to the right instead. We stood under a lamppost and kissed again, and said the usual sweet and sappy stuff we say all the time that makes most people throw up in their mouths a little, so again, I didn't think anything was out of the ordinary.
Then he reached into his cargo shorts pocket and handed me a folded-in-half envelope, and said, "I want you to read this."
(Note: Remember the whole running joke we have about "Trostle University," in reference to the t-shirts his Mom had made up for his whole family. I've referred to him as the Dean of Admissions ever since, and our dating as "the application process," with a few other references here and there. Also, he was born in 1970. Read on.....)
I took it, opened the envelope, and pulled out a piece of ivory-colored paper that looked like parchment, in the form-letter format. And I read the following (I hope this picture comes out):
He'd scanned the family crest/coat of arms from The Book of Trostle that his family had (which he'd given me to read back in August 2006 -- it's been no shock from almost the 2 week mark that this was where we were headed). He'd enlarged it and used it as a watermark on the page. As I read it (aloud, per his request) with a shaky voice and an even shakier hand, I held his hand over my heart to feel its audible and rapid pounding, and kept interrupting to ask, "Is this really happening?!?!" As he reassured me that, yes, it was, in fact, really happening, I read on. When I got to the end, where it says, "P.S. - See enclosure," I turned to him, and he said a few beautiful words that my heart almost overpowered with the sound of its pounding, and got down on one knee, pulling a small box out of his pocket.
He asked me the most beautiful words:
"Christine Ellen Helmes, will you marry me?"
And, without a thought, the first thing that my mouth blurted out without checking first with my brain was, "ARE YOU SURE?!!?"
So we both laughed, and he promised me he was sure, and I showered him with "Yes"es and kisses. He stood up, asked if I'd wanted to take "that other ring" off my left ring finger (some silver ring I'd bought myself years ago, nothing special), and laughed when I told him I already did, as he was getting up (Hey, by that point, I obvs. knew where this was going!). He placed the EXQUISITE ring on my left ring finger, and looked me in the eye, and again, I said, "Yes." About 400 more times (that night, all day Sunday, and most of today. You know, just in case he didn't hear me the first time, or maybe forgot). I almost cried; I almost wet my pants; I almost threw up; I almost screamed. No, wait, I did scream. Often. And jumped up and down. And I think I told some strangers... who probably think I'm the strange one. I held him so tight and kissed him so much, and didn't really even look at the ring until after it was on my hand, that I think he thought I didn't like it (I LOVE IT. LOVELOVELOVELOVELOVE it; it's precisely, to the very last detail, what I'd told him (and, um, everyone he knows -- you know, just in case) that I wanted... but bigger. My eyes widened like saucers when I looked at it again; I nearly fell over).
The ring (since everyone I've told has asked me first and foremost to describe the ring... and pls note that we didn't have a camera when we got engaged, so there aren't any pics from that night (except 3 from my cameraphone of him stapling a dollar to the wall of McGuire's, where Alice was waitressing, with "Jason [heart] Christine... 9-8-2007... WE GOT ENGAGED TODAY!" written on it. We took these yesterday afternoon. It's a 2.07ct Ascher cut, set in platinum, with 12 brilliant-cut diamonds (6 on each side) in a thin pave setting; he had it made by a jeweler in downtown Pensacola):
After the first 10 minutes of me kissing him like we were trying to enter a Guinness Book of World Records Kissing Competition, we sat down on the dock with our feet over the edge, and called our parents.
We started with mine, whom Kara thought (and I agreed) would very likely crawl through the phone to hug us; they love Jason almost as much as I do. He's honestly the son they never had, and he actually likes them, too (despite last month's moving fiasco, even!). Dad gave me strict instructions to: a) call the Nobles (my Godparents, who also live in Annapolis) immediately, and have them call Mom and Dad right after they get off the phone with me; and b) to call my Aunts and Uncles on the East Coast (I'll call West Coast later today, on my drive home) and tell them (I got him to agree to let me wait until Sunday), and then call Mom and Dad BACK to let them know my East Coast family knew, so he could call them and basically gush and bust his buttons. :) How cute is he?!? Then, when we said we'd hang up so we could call Jason's parents, Dad said he and Mom were gonna go open a bottle of champagne (they wound up waiting for a champagne brunch with the Nobles yesterday morning, instead. I have yet to hear how drunk my Dad got, but I'm sure he was happily hammered, LOL).
Then we called Jason's Mom, Lynette, who lives in PCola with his Dad, David (they're married as long as my parents, 44 years this December), but is house-sitting for her family in Ohio. She knew on Friday what Jason had planned, and she'd called David and told him, too. We called David next, and he was so happy, as well. Lynette later called my Mom and Dad, we learned, and she told Mom she was mostly concerned that we'd get so excited that we'd accidentally throw the ring into the water! Mom assured her that, even though I hate to go underwater, I'd be down there to catch it before it hit bottom, LOL (she's right). We then called the Nobles, who were ecstatic, too. We both talked to everyone -- future in-laws (outlaws? haha). While he was on the phone, as we sat on the dock, I lifted up the back of his shirt to check for crude scars indicative of perhaps a black market kidney sale -- no dice. But he assures me the ring is paid for (and we will either have a teeny-tiny wedding soon, since the ring cost... a lot, I presume... or wait 5-7 years for a big one. I opt for something in between, personally. Maybe a year and a half...? Depends on the Marine Corps. Anyway....)
About 30 seconds after I'd said, "Yes," and before we called our families, the one and only song we'd heard the whole evening out of that wedding on the balcony of Hemingway's was, "At Last," by Etta James. I thought it was perfect. :)
Even today, I keep calling and texting him, declaring, "WE'RE GETTING MARRIED!" and squealing into the phone. It seriously caught me SO off-guard, I'm still in shock. I keep noticing my left hand, going, "Holy crap! That really happened!" I mean, we've known it for a long, long time, but I honestly thought it would be another year before he proposed. Boy, did he get me; I never, ever suspected a thing. Not even when a letter came in the mail earlier that day from a jeweler. I guess I'm a little dense...? haha.
Also, my family's reactions (Aunts and Uncles) were unanimously the same: "Does he know what he's getting into?" "He has met us on more than one occasion; did he forget? And on at least two of those occasions, some or all of us were fighting.... Is he sure?!" So you can see I'm not alone among Helmeses wondering, "IS HE SURE?!" LOL that tickled me. :)
OF NOTE:
This morning, after our run on base (daily, we're up at 5a.m. and running by 5:45 on base), he took a shower and was ready to leave while I was still in the shower... so we kissed goodbye then. Awhile later (running late, as usual), I opened my car door to find one of those red roses from Saturday afternoon, perched along the steering column in my truck, with its beautiful red bloom facing me. Since I'd already left an "I love you more!" message on his computer for him to find when he comes home for lunch, I just ran inside and took a pic (not yet uploaded). HOW PERFECT CAN THIS MAN GET?!?!?
FILE UNDER "DESTINY":
"At Last" by Etta James was supposed to be the wedding song for Richard and I, back in 2004.
And September 8th, 2007 -- 9/8/7, on purpose -- was the scheduled wedding date for me and Jason Carr.
I heard that song, and a few minutes later (I really hadn't thought about the Carr wedding stuff at all, until a little later that night), it dawned on me: that song, that date, were parts of my past that were probably meant to be associated with the happiest day of my life -- which almost wasn't. And despite kissing "many a frog," as both Kara and my Godfather have put it, I have finally found my Prince, and he has found me, as we were both destined all along (we might just have to get married on the nearby beaches of Destin, about 90 minutes from PCola!). I haven't given those pasts a lot of thought in a long time, and I don't expect I will. I just found it amusing how those two important aspects of life coincided with the happiest moment of my life to date, reiterating the thought I've elatedly repeated in my head (and out loud, usually while jumping and squealing again. A lot) eleventy-billion-and-three times since Saturday night:
I'm gonna marry that man! :)