Ryan recently bought a house and every spare moment (well, maybe not quite... :)) that he has, he is working like crazy on renovating it. ( I'm really proud of him, by the way)
On that Saturday, I went to my Mom and Dad's house to visit because I hadn't seen the family in a month or so.
I knew I wouldn't see Ryan, because his house is about three hours away, in Leduc. We did text quickly in the morning, as usual, and after he'd updated me about what he was working on, I told him to be careful and make me happy by driving safe because the roads were pretty icy.
I had fun at Mom and Dad's. Jessica and I had spent most of the morning talking about our trip to Europe this summer and looking up places in England where we could stay. At about three in the afternoon I was writing down a bunch of recipes and trying to figure out the internet on my little netbook with my Dad, because it hasn't been working for the last several months... really annoying.
My Mom came up to me with a piece of paper which was printed on, the start of a treasure hunt.
Julie,
Go to the teepee you made last summer.
Wear rubber boots.
The next clue will be in the teepee.
So I thought that my 'little' sisters had set up a treasure hunt for me. I kept on with what I was doing, thinking that the treasure could wait for a little bit... Mom came back in the room and told me I should go before it got dark, so I grabbed my keys, found my boots in the back of my car, and decided it would be faster to drive down the road to that teepee frame... When I got there, I thought I saw Ryan's shoe lying in the ditch! I was quite confused. I thought the girls had just used it for some reason, to weigh the paper down, then I wondered how it could possibly have been in Neerlandia, and why Ryan hadn't noticed he didn't have his shoe... So I pulled on my boots and jumped into the ditch to retrieve it. It was weighing down a clue. So I got back in the car. I was a bit excited, but not that happy that either the girls had just 'borrowed' Ryan's shoe, or somehow Ryan was around and I hadn't even seen him! The clue read like this-
go to the sign that got hit but still gives its message
bring my shoe please
I was in a cloud of confuzzlement then... I didn't even notice that it was Ryan's writing until later. I drove to the end of the road to see if the sign there was driven over, but it wasn't so I decided to expidite matters by asking my family. The only thing the could think of was a sign that had quite a few bullet holes, down by the creek, so I drove there to look around, but there were not even any footprints, so I drove around the block, and the next one. And did I mention that by then it was really muddy out and I had just washed my car on the way to Mom and Dad's? I was a bit upset that the job I'd done was wasted... So I got back to the house and thought for a bit. Then I noticed that it was Ryan's writing. So I tried to text him.
For some reason my phone had randomly decided to stop sending text messages that morning, so when I saw that, I phoned him. I still didn't know for sure that he was in Neerlandia; I thought he might have written the notes before and gotten my little sisters to set it up or something.
When he answered I asked him what he was working on and he told me he was done with what he'd been doing and was going to start on the next thing right away. ~Still confused~ So I told him the girls had sent me on a treasure hunt and the next clue was a broken sign. He reminded me that the sign at the church had been driven into in a huge accident last year. So I told him to have fun working and hung up.
Then I was pretty sure that he had come. -Unless Mom had dropped that clue off in the morning...
So I drove to Neerlandia as fast as I could with the road conditions, and found the next clue by the sign there.
That next clue led me to a barbeque on the front porch of the little town's only bed-and-breakfast, and the next to the skating rink. I was now kind of getting into the spirit of it, and then I hit Sri-Lanka.
Now what in the world? What does Sri-Lanka have to do with a small Dutch community in the middle of nowhere?
After cogitating for a bit, I decided to check out the water treatment facility, which we had called by some outlandish name when we were children- only I knew it wasn't Sri-Lanka- and I wasn't sure we'de ever had occasion to tell Ryan that. If I couldn't find anything there, I was going to call my Mom and get her to look up Sri-Lanka on Google- maybe there was a special day today that had something to do with something in Neerlandia...
I got out of my car at the station, and followed Ryan's boot prints a bit, but then they doubled back, and I decided that I'd just quickly check the back of the building before calling my Mom.
Ryan was right there, he had checked it out and then parked his car and come back with his runners on. He didn't even have a coat on, just his sweater. He' thought I'd be a lot faster... I was working on that first clue for about an hour...
Poor man.
He dropped to one knee in the mud and ased me to marry him.
And I replied appropriatly, "Are you serious????!!!!!!" I shrieked.
Then I maybe was hysterical as I fell to my honches and gave him a hug. When I could breath again, I told him of course I would- I never said yes until half a week later, when he pointed that out to me...
And now we are going to be married this fall- which was his plan all along, even though I thought next year. I'm so excited! God is so good!!
So I have six months to plan my wedding. And I've already gone looking for a decent dress twice, I've got the church and minister booked, and my sisters have all offered to help me, including my special sister, Alison.
Woooooooooooooooooohooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
