Special Announcement!

I know I am deviating from my "Family Blog" series to write this...and I apologize to those waiting to read the "Older Sister" blog which is certainly over-due...... however..... I have big news!

I'm Engaged!

Now sit back, relax and enjoy the story of Matt and Nikki:

Matt moved in across the street from me when I was 16. At the time, we were living in Sagamihara Japan. Matt's older brother was away on a deployment, and his sister in law was pregnant with her 3rd child - so he moved there to help her out in lieu of his brother's absence.

Two of his nephews are the same age as one of my younger brothers, and so my little brother referred to Matt as "Uncle Matt." Now - before I had met him I had assumed "Uncle Matt" was in his forties (because uncles are never hot or young...right?) I had about 1% interest in meeting him.

Then, one day, everything changed. After about 2 weeks of my mom telling me I'd really like "Uncle Matt", I found myself across the street returning a dish (or something) to their house. I had been in there by myself when low and behold, Matt walked in. He wasn't old. He wasn't gray. He certainly wasn't what I'd expected an "Uncle Matt" to look like. He was about 23 and a carbon copy of a young David Boreanaz.

He said, "Hi."
I said, "Hi... You must be 'Uncle Matt.'"
He said, "You must be Kam's sister"
I said, "That's the first time anyone has ever referred to me as Kam's sister (because I'm older than him). Nice to meet you."

Then I ran full speed across the street and back into my house. As soon as I landed in the living room I exclaimed, "I love him, and I'm going to marry him." My parents laughed - they knew exactly who I was talking about.

Of course, I was 16. He was 23. He had no plans to notice me any time soon... so I was the weird girl who lived across the street. I talked to him when I had to, avoided him the rest of the time, and sometimes peeked out the living room window to see what he was doing/if he was in the yard.

Me being me, I had no plans of letting him escape easily. On the day he left Japan, I managed to get him to fork over his email address. That felt like a victorious moment. I knew that as long as I kept communication with him at all throughout the rest of my high school career, that I'd be able to make my move later in my college career.

That's exactly what I did. We exchanged the rare IM's and emails. After my first couple of semesters of college, we exchanged enough IM's that I felt confident enough to ask for his cell phone number. Then I started bombarding him with texts which he hated but couldn't stop responding to. Gradually we became phone-call buddies, and one day I informed him of my plans to get on a plane to visit him. He didn't really get a say in the matter.

On March 7, 2008 I walked off the plane, straight up to Matt and kissed him square on the mouth.

----

The rest, as they say, is history....

Except a certain day last week - which I'm going to tell you about:

On Tuesday, Jun 2, Matt and I decided we wanted to go to Nantucket (as part of a long road trip we are currently on). We spent the morning walking around, renting a scooter, riding around the island, visiting a farm/market. We packed a picnic and took it to one of the many gorgeous beaches on the island. After lunch, we decided it would be fun to walk down by the water. After we'd walked a distance (I was feeling uncomfortably far from our stuff), Matt stopped me. He started acting kind of funny, and I thought maybe he wasn't feeling well or wanted to have a serious conversation.

Instead he started kissing me a lot, which is also unusual for him, and so I started laughing. Out of nowhere he pulled out a little box with a gorgeous ring and said some romantic things followed by, "will you marry me?"

I said, "Is this for real?" and then I said, "yes."

I was completely taken by surprise, and just when I thought I was about to cry I was overcome with a wave of smiley-ness. Instead, I jumped and danced around the beach. :)

And now, we are officially engaged. Ta-da!