So, it dawned on me as I was writing my Friday MilSpouse Fill-In, that I haven’t told you guys how TC proposed!
He’s never been one to really plan anything, but he wanted to take me to Chicago the last weekend in March 2009 to “just get away and relax.” Work had been really very stressful leading up into our major event season in April and I was hating my job. A weekend away in Chicago was perfect. We both love, love, LOVE that city so it seemed fitting that we vacation there. I had no idea what he actually had planned. This is TC, he doesn’t plan ANYTHING, there was no way he could be planning to propose.
My Mom came to pick up Allie on Thursday. The weather wasn’t looking amazing, but we hoped we could at least get off the ground before the snow really picked up on Friday. While meeting my Mom at the house, the FedEx guy shows up, I sign for a package and immediately throw it in TC’s office because I’m sure it’s car parts… literally, I threw the package into his office. I was very wrong, it wasn’t car parts. What girl signed for her own engagement ring and threw the box on a couch like it was worthless crap? This girl.
My Mom took Allie so we could fly out the next day and I went back to work. Friday came and it snowed. Not a little snow, but like 10 inches of snow in just a few hours. Not awesome. We went to the airport six hours before our flight to try to get on standby for the earlier Chicago flight. No go. We sat at the airport and watched the last plane that would leave for Chicago de-ice for almost an hour before it took off, without us. I was angry. Livid, actually. But TC was worse. I’ve never actually seen him so angry about missing a flight before. We drove back home and watched movies all night. I cried, a lot. Work was stressful, I needed away and I was stuck in freaking Kansas.
The next morning, TC work up crazy early (5:00 a.m. to be exact), chipped his truck out of the ice and snow, and went to a little coffee shop down the street to get me Chai, him a latte and the Wall Street Journal. By the time he returned I was awake but refusing to get out of bed. I was angry. I was heartbroken. I should have been waking up in Chicago.
He placed my Chai on my nightstand and we start to read the paper. He then asked if it tasted ok, he didn’t think they made it right. Reluctantly, I pick up the cup and sitting on the top was a dog tag. Allie’s dog tag. That had my first name and TC’s last name. As I sat there, very confused and wondering what the heck was going on, TC pulled out a ring box and asked me to marry him. In our bed. In our house. At 6:00 a.m. on a snowy day in the middle of Kansas. I was shocked. I said yes.
I waited until around 7:00 a.m. to call my parents – who had been in on this THE WHOLE TIME. They knew it was going to happen but they thought it would be in Chicago. (That explained why they were so upset that our flight got cancelled too…) We then called TC’s parents, and our siblings. Everyone already knew. I was the only one left in the dark. Well played TC, well played.
Turns out he was going to propose to me in the middle of Millennium Park basically the same way, with Allie’s new tag and a cup of Chai. No “down on one knee.” No big to-do about the whole thing. It was private. It was very personal. It was just like us. I wouldn’t have changed the way things happened at all.
On the plus side – we got all of our money back from the flights and hotel room so we went out and bought a really big plasma tv. Win/Win weekend for us! I got a pretty sparkly ring and TC got a giant tv.
The impatient military wife. 