The Life of a Struggling College Student: Now presenting...the future Mrs. Sarah Blazier!!!!

If you haven't heard already, I am finally engaged. It seems like it took forever for the blessed event to come about, but nonetheless it is here and I am so excited. So let's start from the beginning of how it all started.

Andy and I have been dating since we were freshman in high school. We met on the 8th grade Washington D.C. trip in a Disney Store in the mall. After we met there, we discovered we were in band together and shared several classes in high school. The rest was history. He never asked me out, we just sort of happened! I guess you could say that it was kismet. We literally met and were best friends from that point on. Attached at the hip as my friends like to say.

Now, six years later, we are planning our engagement. We had discussed it a few times and occationally looked at rings online for the fun of it, but I had no idea what his plans were. He said soon, but in Andy's terms, that could still mean a year from now. I was definately getting restless and sick of calling him my boyfriend, which I was so completely set on the fact that he was NOT my boyfriend. But what do you call a guy who is not your fiance, but not your boyfriend?

Andy was the perfect gentleman. He asked my father if he could ask for my hand. His methods maybe a little unorthodox, but still he did it. It has been a joke between him and my father that Andy should bring my dad chicken since my dad loves chicken and Andy worked at Popeyes. Andy never did bring him chicken, so the joke was that in order to ask for my hand, he had to bring my dad a box of fried chicken! Andy turned up on my doorstep with a box of chicken and my ring in his pocket. My dad opens the door, looks down and says, "You aren't going to ask her to marry you are you?"

Andy responds, "Well actually," he flips the ring out of his pocket, "yes!" My parents were thrilled! They of course proceeded to call everyone and then took pictures. So sweet. I love him for doing that for me.

When he prepared to ask me, he texted Linley and Sophie for their help. Linley texted me at work and asked if I wanted to go to ACU to walk around. Since she is leaving for Uruguay for the fall semester, I really wanted to hang out with her. I asked if Katy could join us, but she said that she would prefer if it was just the two of us. Little did I know, she was trying to figure out a way to fit Katy into the plan. So we walked around ACU, and then we decided that Katy should eat dinner with us. So Katy was instructed to meet us by the tennis courts at ACU, and in the mean time, Linley and I would just walk around. We drove over in that direction and as we were driving I made the comment about how I didn't think Andy would ever propose. I truly could not understand how he could wait any longer whether or not we were going to wait to get married until after I graduated. He said that he felt the same way I did about proclaiming each other boyfriend and girlfriend, and yet he still waited! Linley later tells me that she was trying so hard not to laugh at this point. We walk over to the ACU amputheatre where I proceed to check the 5 texts messages from Andy saying "where are you?" "do you want to hang out?" "why aren't you answering me?" "Are you ignoring me?" and finally "I guess you're hanging out with Linley tonight." I decided to call him and appologize for not getting back to him while Linley kept watch out for Katy. Andy was talking to me saying it was ok and not to worry. Then I heard wind in the background. I asked him, "where are you? are you outside?"

He answers, "Yeah, I'm letting Joey (his dog) outside."

This made perfect sense to me because Joey doesn't like to go outside by himself.

Meanwhile, Linley calls back to me and yells, "she's here!" So we run down to the parking lot and meet Katy by her truck. While standing there, I look at the far end of the parking lot at a car and a girl who looks just like my friend and coworker Sophie. I ask, "is that Sophie?!"

Linley immediately answers, "who? oh, no, probably not."

Linley suggests we start walking over towards Jacob's Dream, the big statue behind the Bible Building of Jacob's ladder, to decide where we want to go eat. Once at Jacob's Dream, Katy and I sit down on the stone wall that lines the statue and Linley says to wait there while she goes to the bathroom. I ask if I can go with her, and she says no. I ask why not and she says "because it won't smell very good." This is actually, as Katy says, the best on the spot cover story ever because I loathe being in the same room as someone when they are pooping. So of course I was going to refuse to go with her. We sit there for maybe a minute, and she comes back and says, "oh, um...it was just gas." HAHA...so we start walking back to our cars to "seriously" decide what we're going to eat. Except this time we take the sidewalk that goes directly by the Bible building.

Once we reach a clearing that is almost completely surrounded by crapemertles and bushes, I feel a tap on my shoulder. I thought it was a tree branch so I look at my shoulder and I see a hand. I spin around on the spot and I see Andy standing there. I start studdering, "What are you doing here!?" and he drops to one knee and starts to propose. I heard what he said, but honestly I didn't process all of it.

Here's the gist of what I heard:

"We have spent about 6 years together and you are my best friend. I know that it can be hard to put up with me sometimes and the past few years have been tough being apart, but I know you are the one I want to spend the rest of my life with.....will you marry me?"

Of course I said yes. I was laughing the entire time. I couldn't help it. I was so excited and I didn't know what to do. I wanted to cry to badly because I was so happy, and I could feel it in the pit of my stomach, but it wouldn't come. I just kept laughing! We stood in our little tree fenced in area and kissed for a while. It was so funny cause he was ready to go walk off, but I had to pull him back and say calm down, let's enjoy this for a minute. The feeling was so surreal. It almost felt like we were pretending. Certainly this couldn't be real, but in fact it is. And I'm getting married!

We met back with my friends, Katy, Linley and Sophie (that was her by the car). Sophie had packed us a picnic dinner complete with picnic blanket, picnic basket and chocolate cheesecake. It was so wonderful and so romantic. I loved it. I am so thankful for all that my friends did to help Andy out, and even more thankful for Andy and all that he went through to make this experience special for me. I love him so much and I know that I am incredibly blessed to be with him. I can't wait to see what our life has in store for the two of us. Difficult though it may be at times, I know that this is going to be a fun ride and I can't wait to jump on. Let the wedding planning begin!!!!

Oh I forgot to mention when we want to get married. The preliminary date that we are looking at is May 28, 2011. That could change, but right now that's what we are looking at.