Thursday 3/28/24- Nate and Steph do a scratch off date going to good will (buying clothes we want then other person to wear for the rest of the date), eat out at Clive’s, yum! Go see movie: Arthur the King. Then that night we both had a good time, but Steph was being a little curious asking when a ring could be ready and I said I didn’t have it yet (she already knew I talked to her parents and asked her dad for his blessing).

Friday 3/29/24- Steph took the day off of work…. Just because… had lunch with her brother, got her nails 💅 done, and was going to come over to my place and got to see a little of my job, working from home. I was planning on going to the gym before the Good Friday service at church, so Steph would be alone at my house. As I was about to head into the gym, I got a call from Arthur’s Jewelers that the ring was done (bought it on 2/23/24 so took over a month, due to my alterations), and was contemplating if I should go get it and if I would have enough time to go do it without her noticing I was gone too long. So as I sat in the parking lot, I made the decision to go pick it up (25 min drive to Roseville and back). The jeweler showed me the ring and I was so happy how it💍 turned out. I then went back to the gym about 5 pm, ran for 10 minutes to get sweaty and then I did a couple pull ups for the arms, and then got on the bike, and took a picture for Steph that I was just about done and asked if she wanted me to pick up chipotle. I hid the ring in my gym bag, and we ate the food and went to church. The whole time I kept it pretty cool, and I don’t think she had any idea. She left my place probably close to 10PM because we were going to have any early trip to my brothers the next day for Easter. So, after she left I just started planning, because I really was hoping to propose before Easter, so she could kinda show it off to our families. I honestly just stared at the ring for a little bit, then got to work. I found a cool spot by Lake Menomin, that looked like a heart shaped trail, then I started practicing getting on one knee, how to open the ring box (not as easy as it looks when you are nervous) and what I wanted to say. Probably got that all figured out by 12:30.

Saturday 3/30/24 planned to wear my vest and have the ring 💍 hidden in my zipped jacket 🧥 pocket, that I would wait to wear until we got to the park (so there wouldn’t be rattling around or a bulge that would give away the surprise). I also got a single rose 🌹 and hid it in the cooler carrying the food that I made, and also hide the aroma. I also put the lake address under Annie’s name in my contact list, so that way when I put it into the gps it would show “going to Annie’s address” instead of the park (and this was her first time going to their house in Menomine). Everything on my end went smoothly. Then went to pick up Steph at her house, got all packed and everything also went smoothly. During the trip I was really just praying for good weather when we got there and that the lake would have pretty scenery as well. The drive was about 1.5 hrs so I was rehearsing in my head some things while also keeping conversation with Steph. I definitely was a little nervous, mentioning a few times how long the trip seemed to be. As we got closer, we were thankfully driving through some neighborhoods so Steph didn’t suspect anything until we got closer to where she could see our destination was taking us to a lake, she even asked “do they live on a lake?” And I said, “yeah pretty close” since we were basically 5 minutes away from his house. I pulled up to the park and the little parking lot, and asked if she wanted to get out and stretch a little before we got to their house which she said sure. I think she suspected here that it’s possible I could propose but then she was thinking back to Thursday when she didn’t think that I had it, so she ended up thinking it was just a nice place to walk. I grabbed my coat with the ring in my pocket, and then looked out at the park, it was pretty small, so I was kind of scoping where would be a good spot. We stopped by a bench and looked out over the lake, and as she was turning to leave, I looked at her and said “this is the moment” and I got down on my knee. Said my proposal speech and we were both a little emotional. She said yes! We kissed for the first time! It was also nice that no one else was around, and was a really cool moment that I will definitely cherish between us. She also started laughing saying that I lied to her about not having the ring Thursday, but as we continued walking around the lake and the park I explained how everything happened. She was overjoyed and understood that I didn’t lie. She wanted to call her mom right away, and as she did that I grabbed the rose from the cooler. I could hear her mom say “whatttttt?” When she announced that we were engaged. She wanted to FaceTime quick so we did that and explained all that happened. Then we cooled down a little bit and then talked about how to go about telling my family since we would be there in 5 minutes. What we ended up doing was introducing her to my grandma who hadn’t met her yet, as Stephanie my fiancé. And as we came in everyone was chatting on the side but slowly turned as I said fiancé, Annie was like…”what did you just say?” And we explained the proposal again and all that happened and they were all excited and wanted to see the ring. The timing was just incredible. Also nice that she just got her nails done to be pretty and showing off the ring 🙂

Sunday 3/31/24

We first went to church together, and then as we drove up, started to talk about wedding things. And then we got to her parents house for Easter and we decided to wait to tell everyone until they were all gathered for lunch. And then Steph with me, adding a little commentary, told the story of what happened the prior day and the proposal, and they were all excited as well! It was also nice that Timmy and Laura just had their baby to kind of share the spotlight instead of having all of it.