A few days later……

A few days later, I would wake up in my bed and would lie there those first few moments of waking up and then it’d dawn on me, holy heck there is something on my hand…. I’m engaged to be married, Oklahoma proposed to me……

There are still moments I’ll be shopping, or washing my hands, or glance in the mirror and I see this beautiful ring on my hand and thing oh my gosh!!! I’m engaged to Oklahoma!!!!!

It’s so hard being away from him…. It’s hard to really think we’ve lived the past 13 years a part, why is it so complex to do so now???

I just returned from another trip to Oklahoma.. I was there for for a week this time… It was a great trip, I feel like I got a lot accomplished in the house… You see Oklahoma has been a bachelor for awhile, so the house needed a woman to get in there and clean and square things up… I only got a teeny tiny portion of the kitchen complete, but once I did, oh did I feel good, and I felt at home while I was in there cooking… It’s amazing how the addition of a few things to the kitchen can make me feel like it’s my kitchen now….

We had an incredible week, it was filled with job interviews for me, and him having to work… I bet your thinking what’s incredible about that… Well, we had to live “real life” for the week.. It wasn’t the usual vacation period that our visits have been… He went to work, and I was home to clean and cook and take care of errands…. I loved every-single-second of it…. It is very very rewarding taking care of a home, and taking care of my Oklahoma at the end of the day….

Monday, Tuesday and everyday there after without him…..

Monday we spent the day with my family, we swam and cooked out and played Pictionary, it was a lot of fun… Oklahoma fit in well with the chaos of the family, it was nice!

0330 in the morning came on so very early… It was time to wake up and take my Oklahoma to the airport… It was a quite morning, not many words were spoken… Which now in hindsight I notice a trend…. Neither of us talk much on that dreaded ride to the airport……..

It was dark and I drove with a heavy heart…. We spent a little bit of time sitting at the airport, and then it was time to send him on his way…..

I walked begrudgingly back to the car and all I could think about was those Fergie lyrics from the song Big Girls Don’t Cry

“The smell of your skin lingers on me now
You're probably on your flight back to your home town
I need some shelter of my own protection baby
To be with myself and center, clarity
Peace, Serenity”

I got back into the car, and the smell of him, the smell of his cologne and wintergreen chew lingered in the car…..

Sometimes this is harder then I think either of us bargained for…….. In the end it is all worth it and we both know it……

Sunday 05/30

Sunday was the first day we had to ourselves, we had nothing planned until that evening, it was heavenly to just be able to lounge around the house. We woke up that morning and I made Oklahoma some coffee and he sat outside for a bit and enjoyed the morning and watered my grass, I did a few things around the house. It was like we had settled into a routine already, it was really nice just being able to do our own things and yet still be in each others presence.. Eventually we showered and got ready for the day and managed to find our way to the couch to watch tv and nap.

That evening we went to my friends house for dinner and dominoes! I have a friend who I have known since high school, well I went to her house a few weeks ago to tell her about Oklahoma, well as it turns out her husband grew up about 20 miles from where Oklahoma lives. So we decided to get together while he was here. We had a great time, for starters she is an amazing cook, and made homemade pesto pizza which was delicious (she always prepares me wonderful vegetarian dishes) Oklahoma made the dessert for us, he made a pizza cookie, which was so yummy!!! We played dominoes and had a nice night!!

Besides the engagement on Saturday, Sunday was one of the best days while he was here, because we were able to spend the day with just each other.... I love my Oklahoma so very much!!

Saturday 05/29

Saturday we drove around sight seeing my work, Old Town Scottsdale etc.. We met my bestie and her family at Green New American Vegetarian Restuarant! I absolutely LOVE this restuarant, I could eat there for every meal!! We sat around and visited and ate our faux meat! I'm sure it was quite the experience for this beef fed boy from Oklahoma, but the fact that he was even open to it was great, he is very supportive of my lifestyle choices!!

We came home and watched Shrek and napped off and on. It was finally time to get ready for our company for the night. I had invited over my sisters and their husbands/bfs and a few other close friends over to watch the Suns game, meet Oklahoma and play games.

We were in my room finishing getting ready, and he was sitting on the edge of my bed, and I was just chatting away and moving around the room, and somehow I ended up sitting on the side of the bed with him, and I was still talking to him and started to kiss him and he sorta moved me back away from him, and he turned to face me. When I looked down, he had a box in his hand. Well of course it dawned on me what he was about to do, so it made me start to cry, in which he said no, no, you can't cry hold on, and he opened the box and took the ring out, and everything was such a blur (Literally because I was trying not to cry) and he held my hands and he was shaking like a leaf and he was so sweaty!! IT was so sweet, and he said "Brittney will you marry me?" I said "Yes, and I will love you for the rest of my life" And he slipped the ring on my finger..... It was the most amazing moment of my life!!

So then we text/called friends, family, parents etc. Everyone was so excited for us!! Shortly there after our friends arrived and we had dinner and watched the Suns game and we played, pool and fooseball and hung out. It was a great night, I was so excited and so glad he picked that moment to propose to me becuase it was a great way to celebrate with my closest friends and family there.

This is our first picture taken as an engaged couple :) WOW, I still look down at my hand and get goosebumps when I realize that I am going to be Mrs.Oklahoma soon!!! I adore this man so very much, he is simply amazing!!

Friday 05/28

Friday morning we had to wake up to our alarm because we I had made plans to go tubing down the salt river with Oklahoma and my friends here. YIKES it was early, but we managed to pull ourselves together and get to the meeting point.

Here is Oklahoma waiting for another couple so we could carpool to the meeting spot. I'm sure he's going to be really excited that I'm posting all these random pictures of him :)

We had a really fun time on the river, we went with some fun friends and enjoyed the Arizona scenery. We went back to the house and took showers and napped until it was time to go face my parents... I kept giving Oklahoma "pretend questions" that my dad might ask. Now anyone who knows my father knows he is a man of very few words, so I knew good and well he wasn't going to ask anything deep or personal, at least not on the first meeting that just isn't his style, my father is the man that stands in the back and digests it  all in.

If you read any of my other posts you also know that dinners at my parents house are always big productions, rarely to we eat quick, we usually all sit around the big dining room table and eat and talk for a long time.

Well in true Elias fashion that is exactly what we did, we sat around the big table talking and talking. It was very comfortable there, he fit in nicely, and didn't seem overwhelmed by the Elias girls... Trust me we can be a little intimidating when you get us all together! After dinner we were haning out and my mom, Oklahoma and I went to sit outside for a bit. My mom is a straight shooter, she had no trouble asking questions point blank. Oklahoma had no trouble answering her... "I love your daughter very much, and I believe she is the one" he told my mom..... I could have cried my eyes out right there! It is one thing for him to say it to me, but another thing to hear him tell my mom! Needless to say the meeting of the family went well, very well!

This was taken that night at my parents, and that is Emma Baffert in the corner :)

Our lazy Thursday together

(so because I have a bad memory, someday I’ll turn my blog into a scrapbook for my kids to read, so yes, I am going to blog day by day what we did)

We grabbed lunch and went home to finally go to sleep… We both hadn’t slept in a few days by this point…….. We slept well past 5pm!!! We decided to go to my parents house so they could meet him real quick and then to dinner at the Cheesecake Factory to meet Danielle… Oklahoma insisted on shaving before going to meet my parents…. He also looked so cute in shorts, a t-shirt and flip flops! It was his Arizona outfit…  

The first meeting of my parents and my youngest sister went well… We were off to meet Danielle at the Cheesecake Factory. It went well we talked a lot and ate, we were starved by that point…. We finally took one of our first pictures together!!

 

Oklahoma comes to Arizona

On May 26th, I got off work that morning and raced home to jump in bed I was soooooooooo tired… By 11am I was wide awake, wide awake like I drank an ocean of coffee wide awake.. Apparently the anticipation of Oklahoma arriving was playing with my emotions more than I realized….

I finished the last minute details of house cleaning I needed to get done and was off to work… OHHHHH gosh, by the time my shift started I was hurting.. I felt like I was hit by a truck, probably that same truck that dropped off that ocean of coffee that made me so wide awake earlier in the day… THANK GOODNESS the census was low and I have some great coworkers that were working to get me out of there… I was able to leave work by 9pm, instead of 6am!!

Off to Walmart I went, who knows what for but I am SURE I needed something important before he came… Remember that trip to Target I took the night before leaving for Oklahoma? (Read that post here) Yup it pretty much was the same scenario, I was walking the store aimlessly…. Thank goodness, good old Oklahoma knows me well enough to give me a call when I don’t respond after awhile, he was able to talk me through my crazy excitement.

You see, Oklahoma had to work that night too.. He was working until 3am when he was going to leave for the airport… Well after several conversations back and forth and the anticipation, he left work at 2am instead… Midnight Arizona time, meanwhile I was still cleaning, ironing, dusting, DOING-IDIODIC-THINGS-TO-KEEP-BUSY preparing the house for my love….

So we talked all the way to Wichita, he finally made it there by 4am and he was going to sleep in the car for a bit…. At that point I was going to try to nap for the hour too….

We were liked crazed school kids, we didn’t sleep very much at all, and ended up calling each other before our alarms had gone off!

After 123810921 explanations of what he needed to do when he got inside the airport, he finally was ready to do it.. He was going inside to check into his flight… It was precious his level of concern for doing all that it entails to travel these days…

Before long he was off to Dallas…. An hour later, I got my next call, he was in Dallas safe and sound… About 2 hours later I was pacing the terminal in Phoenix, like a lunatic waiting for him to arrive… I was just as nervous as when I flew out there….

No words can describe how right he makes my world when I am with him….. At last there he was, my gorgeous, Oklahoma….. It was time to begin our 6 days together….