The Proposal

On July 7, 2007 I was faced with a beautiful proposal. Read on to hear how Ross proposed (it’s very elaborate!)

My birthday is on July 6, so Ross, my friend Carissa, and his sister Jordan all went to Sarasota for my birthday weekend. He had maintained that he was only going to be there on the 6th because he had to go back to Orlando to work on the 7th.

I did not believe it for a second.

See, I knew Ross had the ring. We knew we were going to get married one day before we even began dating. And I remember that I had once told him that 07-07-07 was such a fun date (obviously, with all the hundreds, maybe thousands of weddings that took place on that day!). And I have always been sneakily suspicious and VERY hard to surprise.

Still, after some family birthday time, Ross “hit the road” (mmhmm…). Soon after, some of my other girl friends from Orlando showed up, “Surprise!” to hang out with me over my birthday weekend.

The next morning the girls and I went out and about Sarasota (minus my now sister-in-law who woke up with an ear infection!). I remember when we were out shopping the girls kept wanting to try on dresses….”that dress looks cute on you, LC, why don’t you get that dress, let’s get cute dresses to wear to a sunset! We can take lots of fun photos at the sunset tonight!”. Mmmhmmm…

We came back to my house after lunch, and that’s when things got “weird”. All the girls except Carissa and Jordan (SIL) left. I had to get nice and pretty (mmhmmmm) to go out on a scavenger hunt that Ross had designed “since he wasn’t able to be there to continue to celebrate my birthday in person”. (mmhmmm…).

I unfortunately don’t have any pictures of the scavenger hunt, but Ross was very thorough, and included all of my favorite spots in Sarasota in the scavenger hunt. The hunt led us to dinner at a fun restaurant in Sarasota called Cosimo’s (fabulous pizza if you’re ever there!).

When we got to Cosimo’s I saw a table with a bunch of people with menus hiding their faces…hmmm. I just KNEW it was Ross and our friends and family!!

WRONG!

It was a bunch of friends from Orlando who had come to surprise me for a birthday dinner! Well I was definitely surprised.

We all enjoyed our time at dinner, and it was then that I actually began to think that maybe Ross was actually working (I kept expecting him to pop out all during the day and the scavenger hunt!). I began to think, “maybe this actually is for my birthday!”.

We quickly wrapped up dinner to all head over to Siesta Key, since only a couple of people had seen a beautiful sunset there before.

This is where the real fun begins.

We get to the parking lot and our friend Richie (the same one who just got married recently!) goes, “oh no! I think I left my wallet in the restaurant!” He and our friend Katie (same one who took our wedding pictures….) left to go get Richie’s wallet, since he was “so concerned”.

When we get to the beach, Carissa hands me one last scavenger hunt clue, telling me this one I have to do on my own.

This last clue was a hand drawn map with an “x marks the spot”.

I obviously knew what I was looking for.

I began to hightail it down the beach. Picture this chick in a red dress, holding her shoes, her camera, her phone, her purse SPEED walking down the sand. I must’ve been quite a sight.

I start to get a little annoyed because I can’t find Ross! lol! I actually started calling Ross and leaving him messages: “I know you’re here, and I know I’m looking for you, but I don’t know where you are and I need to find you! The sun is setting and it’s going to be dark soon and then I really won’t be able to find you!” lol. He never answered.

Well, I get to the Point of Rocks on Siesta. My scavenger hunt map showed a flag for the “x marks the spot”, so naturally I was looking for a flag of some sort, or Ross.

Which is why I completely walked past this:

Ross had set up a treasure box in the sand with a rose, a picture of us, his journal with some of favorite verses from 1 John, and a lantern on top of the rocks by this point.

Yup, I totally whizzed right past it.

Now remember Richie and Katie going to get Richie’s wallet? They weren’t. Richie had his wallet. They were driving down to Point of Rocks so they could stake out and take hidden pictures of Ross proposing (such a great idea, I treasure these proposal pictures so much!)

When I walked right past Ross’ treasure chest set up (and coincidentally walked right past where Ross was hiding behind the rocks) Richie let out one of those really loud whistles. I turn around, still don’t see anyone, and resume my intense waking and searching. Richie whistles again and this time yells out “LINDSEY!”. Well, at this point Ross realized there was no hope in me finding the treasure chest on my own. So he stepped out of hiding and led me around to the treasure chest.

I read the words he had written, and then turned around as he grabbed my hands and spoke some beautiful words to me. (I spy a little box in someone’s hand behind their back!)

He got down on one knee (and I started tearing up!)….

“Lindsey (middle name) (maiden name), will you marry me?”

I think we all know what I said.

YES!

Slipping the bling, I mean ring, on my finger.

The ring: (3 stone ring, white gold, and the tiny diamonds lining the band actually even go under the three raised stones!)

During all of that time I seriously lost track of time and wasn’t aware of anyone else except Ross, myself and our beautiful God who has orchestrated our entire story. It wasn’t until moments later that I realized there was a small crowd applauding, it was after that when I heard the click of the shutter and realized Katie was there taking pictures, it was after that when I saw the rest of our friends walking up the beach.

Such a beautiful night!

I found out later that Ross had actually been planning this proposal for months with my sister and some close friends. “Operation 777” was top-secret and was definitely a successful mission.

And there you have the story of how my left hand was forever changed and Ross began his journey of forever trying to surprise me and me always ruining surprises (unintentionally most of the time!).