Willingly and completely

I guess the cat is out of the bag. :)
As some of you knew, my birthday was last week. I thought it was going to be a quiet day without much fuss (just as I like it). But- Harris had other plans. We started the day by driving up to his parents place for a family dinner. His mom managed to get enough pictures together to do a cute little scrapbook. This was my gift. As I was looking through it, I have to be honest, I was kind of thinking that she was a little premature because there would be a picture of me at 2 years old and then a picture of Harris (on the next page) at 2 years old. Then a picture of me at 13 and a picture of Harris at 13. And, so on and so on - until it became a record of things he and I had done together. A lot of blank pages were left in the scrapbook and I thought it was a sweet idea that she had left room for us to keep putting things in the book. After cake, Harris asked me to take a walk with him. Still pretty normal for when we visit his parents, although as I'm still in PT, I was a little worried about walking on uneven ground at night. I needn't have worried for when we went outside, his dad had hitched up this old hay wagon to one of the horses and he took us for a nighttime ride. I think I started to realize something was up when I saw that they'd lined the path with luminarias. We got to this small rise on the back of their property, that overlooks the river, and there's a bench where multiple generations of his family have come to pop the question. It was beautiful - little lanterns where everywhere and there was a bouquet of flowers on the bench (not that they were really needed because there were poppies and lupine everywhere, growing wild). I actually started to panic and I still don't understand why because I knew as soon as I saw this that I was going to say yes - but I had major butterflies in my stomach. Harris helped me out of the wagon and his dad pulled a ways-a-way to give us privacy. The conversation we had is private but the basics included that he promised to love me forever and asked if I would promise the same in return. I said "Yes!"

My ring is beautiful. It's his grandmother's engagement ring so it's very simple and I love it. Just one small diamond in a gold setting.

I can't tell you how different this feels from my first engagement. There's no way to compare the two. I wish my father and every other patriarchal, Gothard father could see how special and wonderful this was and how willing I was to say yes. I truly don't believe my father could've picked someone as right for me as Harris and I think it was the time we spent getting to know each other privately that makes this feel so right. It was the small arguments and how we learned to handle them and the shopping together and, yes, sleeping in the same bed on occasion that makes me so ready to promise myself to him. I can't wait to build a home and a life with this man.

Now to the questions I've received in e-mail and on facebook and other places-
Have you set a date?
Tentatively, yes. April or May of 2012. We haven't made any plans yet because the engagement just happened! :)

Have you told your parents?
Yes. I felt like I should and I needed to. I made the call home and my mom answered (THANK GOD!). She was really happy for me but that happiness was cut short by my father (as I expected). He wanted to make it clear to me that this wasn't a God sanctioned union and Harris hadn't asked his permission so blah, blah, blah. Harris won't be asking his permission. The funny thing was - I called using one of Harris' cousins' cell phones and they've been getting hang-up calls three times a day ever since. :/

Are you going to involve your family in the wedding?
I don't know, yet. If I thought that my dad could handle it, I might. I just don't think he can. I would love to have my siblings there but that gets complicated because for the younger ones it means having my dad there, too. I don't know right now. I would hope they could be there. We'll see.

Are you quitting school?
No! ?

Are you pregnant?
No! Again - ?

Thank you for the well wishes!