Chris' Part
After much prayer and consideration, I knew God had brought Leah into my life to be my wife. I was always one to say, "I won't get engaged in less than a year of dating..." but the old axiom really holds true. When you know, you know. Leah and I had discussed already what kind of rings she liked and didn't like, and I knew that a simple phone call to her friend Megan would get me the info I needed. Although I had the ring picked out in my head, I didn't know who to contact. I got in touch with a diamond dealer and purchased the ring in early November. I had always wanted to propose in a way that a party would be setup for everyone to celebrate afterwards. I saw my annual Christmas party as a perfect opportunity to do that. I discussed it with my friends Dan and Casey and decided to turn the Christmas party into a Christmas/engagement party. Now... all I needed to do is figure out how to actually propose.
I am a bit of a romantic at heart and wanted to do something that she would love to tell the story of, which you will see her story below. I had decided to do a bit of an engagement scavenger hunt. Although I knew this would give away the whole engagement after the first few clues, I figured patience is a lesson we can all stand to learn a little more. I must preface the section below by saying that I worked hard to convince Leah that the engagement was not happening anytime soon. It hurt me a little sometimes because I know how sad it made her for me to tell her to wait, but... I guess I'm just sadistic. So, I had met up with her mom and co-worker Jamie to deliver all my clues to the scavenger hunt on some cardstock that I got from designed little clues on. I'll leave the actual story up to Leah...
Leah's Part
I was at work ready to leave for the Christmas party we were throwing that night and one of my coworkers brought in an envelope with my name on it and it said from:Chris. it was a note that told me to enjoy the journey on the memorable day and to listen to the CD (in the envelope) to keep me company while I was stuck in traffic...then it sent me home. At this point I still refused to believe this was actually happening because Chris had been SO adament that we were not getting engaged until the spring at the earliest. I even had conversations with m closest friends and my mom the day before he proposed because I was SO sad at how he kept talking about how there was no way it was happening soon!
I went home and saw a vase of my favorite flowers sitting on the table with another envelope that looked just the same. This note told said I have had my own home with family and friends for 23 years and now it is time to make my own home with someone who loves me and will take care of me. Then it sent me to my church to look for a note on a car. Let's just say I caught on after this note (I mean, he 
told me we were going to make a home together) and maybe my mom waiting inside the door taking pictures of me coming in from work gave it away too!
This note said that we need to keep our focus on the Lord in our marriage and asked me to take a moment to pray for both of us, and then it sent me to All Fired Up which is one of my favorite places to spend time with friends and paint pottery. The note at All Fired Up said he can't wait to get to know my friends even more and he was excited we had a lifetime to do that...and that we would get to hang out with them late that night, then it sent me to where we had our first kiss…
So, after sitting in the worst traffic I think in Atlanta HISTORY…I went to the little park where we had our first kiss and conversation defining our relationship back in May, and there was another note saying how I took this journey alone but I would never have to do that again, so turn around...and then he was there and proposed!!
It was so perfect and I could not have asked for a better story to tell! After we talked and prayed in the park, we went back to Chris's for our Christmas party we had been planning with our friends Casey and Dan and there was a big engagement party with all of our friends…and Chris's parents even flew up for the big surprise!! Apparently I was the only one not in on the whole thing…
