2 Years Ago Today.....

Jay asked me to be his WIFE!!!

7/4/2009 - By Jay

How we got engaged

How a first time trip to the Big Apple for Kelly and a return trip for me ended up being the most amazing time of our lives was nothing short of a pure blessing. The idea of the trip was actually spawned by my dear cousin Marcelle getting married in NY, supposedly on the 4th of July. I figured this would be a great trip for Kelly and I so she could see the city and get to meet some family and I would get to return home and reconnect with family that I haven't seen in ages. Well the wedding date got moved back and that opened the door for my plans to move forward.

Kelly will be the first to attest to the fact that I am sneaky, which is great for her because she loves surprises. With the help of my awesome family in NY, my cousin Colin and his wife Billie and daughter Gabby who live in Manhattan and his parents, Uncle Sherman and Aunty Thora we were able to coordinate everything from rides to and from the airport and to Manhattan where Colin and family opened up their doors to us and allowed us to have free reign of the city, which we sure did. All of that was prelude to the main event, the 4th of July.

There is a lot of hidden meaning to what went down on the 4th of July so here is a little taste of why this all went down the way that it did. Kelly loves the 4^th of July, in particular she loves fireworks, and what better time of year to enjoy them than on the 4^th right? Well the first 4^th of July that Kelly and I spent together it rained… hard. There were no fireworks to be seen, we actually ended up going to Wal-Mart and coming back home and watching movies.. The second and probably the more important one is an ongoing disagreement that we have in regards to a fruit tart. On a weekend trip that I took Kelly on to the Biltmore House in Asheville for a Stephen Curtis Chapman concert, we spent the day there prior to the concert and she took me on my first picnic there, it was just a magical time. Well one of the items in the picnic basket was a fruit tart.

Well we were walking through either Sam’s Club in Charlotte or the Fresh Market in Greenville (that is the ongoing debate, we can’t agree on where we saw the tarts) but she spotted the tart and asked me “What does that remind you of?” Well I see RED strawberries, WHITE cream cheese and BLUE blueberries and the first thing that pops into my head was “The 4^th of July!” Yeah, I was wrong. So now anytime that she asks me “What does this remind you of?” regardless of whether I know the answer or not I respond “The 4^th of July!”

So when it came time to propose, I made sure that all of the elements were there. We were going to have a picnic on the Hudson River to watch the fireworks so we went shopping ahead of time at Whole Foods in Columbus Circle for some viddles and I made sure to get a little fruit tart. I of course had the ring on me and my camera to take pictures of the fireworks. After we got done eating the fireworks began and I started taking pictures. Kelly decided to have her desert and after a while I asked her to take some pictures while I got to eat my desert, my little fruit tart. While she was fussing around with the camera trying to make it work, I grabbed the tart out of the bag and the ring out of my pocket and put it in the middle. I came up from behind her and said “Hey baby, take a bite of this.” And in her sweet voice she looked at me and replied “No honey, it’s your desert, you eat it.” I then put it a little closer to her face and said “No, I really want you to have this.” It’s a miracle that she didn’t drop the camera, but that’s replaceable, the look on her face, the reaction, the scream of excitement and the tears that followed, the memories from that can never be replaced. I would gladly give up all of my possessions if that is what it would take to relive that moment, it was priceless!