3. Proposal: how it happened, how long you were engaged for, was it a total surprise? pictures of that….etc.

We both were living in New York and Tyler had just graduated and I still had 1 more year left to go. At the beginning of the summer we both went home to see our families. After 4 weeks at home I came back to NY because I had signed up for summer classes so I could graduate on time. Tyler stayed home for a few more weeks.

The night before Tyler came back to New York, we were both online and a few days earlier, I sent him a surprise through email with 100 reasons why I love him. So that night, he sent me an email back with 100 reasons why he loves me. He was slow at responding my IMs and I automatically assumed it was because he was busy with his family and packing. Little did I know that he was on the phone with my parents to ask my dad for my hand in marriage.

Tyler’s flight was not coming in until around 11 that evening so I hung out with my roommate at our apartment until it was time to go pick him up. My mom was texting me constantly asking me when I was going to the airport, if I was already there, to tell Tyler hi and to ask if I was by myself or if my roommate was going with me. I thought it was a bit weird since it takes a while for Mom to text me back and why does she care about all the small details!? I ignored it and just answered all her questions.

So I left for the airport and I remember it was raining. As I was parking in the garage, my mom was still asking me more questions “It’s raining? Be careful!” and “Has Tyler arrived yet?”

I was so excited to see Tyler so I kind of ignored my mom’s text messages at this point as I walked into the airport.

I was at the security checkpoint gate waiting for Tyler to arrive. We hugged and kissed and walked together to the baggage claim area. I kind of noticed that he was quiet but I didn’t think much of it though because I knew it was late and he was probably tired.

We got 1 of his bags and as we were waiting for the other bag he seemed to be so focused on finding his bag. Then I saw a duffel bag come out and only caught “Steph V” on it and I immediately thought how cool it was that this bag belonged to another girl here with the same name as me and I looked around to see who this “girl” was then looked back at Tyler to find him on his knees.

Right there it clicked in my head that the bag was Tyler’s. He asked me to marry him and of course the first thing I said was, “are you serious?” over and over and he assured me that he was serious! So obviously I said YES!

As we were walking out to the car, I texted my mom to tell her the news and then realized that was why my mom was texting me like crazy because my family knew. I was definitely surprised and had no idea what he was up to!

We got engaged on July 14, 2007 and got married on November 24, 2008 so we were engaged for 14 months. 14 months was the perfect amount of time for us since we started planning our wedding quickly after the engagement while I was finishing college.

Tonight at 8:15PM, it will be our 10 year anniversary of being together! I can’t believe it’s been 10 years. I feel young but at the same time I feel old if it’s been 10 years already! And who says we can’t have two anniversaries?

We have a special story that we can tell our children some day. That we’re high school sweethearts. We never broke up or took a break. Sure, there were some bumpy rides along the way but not bumpy enough to break up. Even though there may have been some conversations of breaking up a few times but we never did. We even survived a long distance relationship from 11-12th grade. We even survived during the difficult times where people doubted our relationship especially some of our high school friends. Some of them even encouraged us to break up during our long distance relationship. That proved our love was strong enough to keep the bad influences out of our relationship.

We survived all of that and here we are 10 years later! I still look forward to seeing him everyday after work. Even when we fight, we can never stay mad at each other for long. It’s like a fight you have with your siblings where sometimes you forget you’re mad at each other 10 minutes later. We have our moments…of course, we’re not perfect but still very much madly in love!

I’m looking forward to the next 10 years with Tyler….even the pretty children we’ll have in the next few years!

P.S. I think it’s so cool that our 10 year anniversary is on the same day that William & Kate got married!

This is where I live which is in a master-planned community that is a family-friendly neighborhood and includes a community-oriented lifestyle with recreation, entertainment, top-notch schools and all with 31,000 residents. There’s a golf course, club houses, sports, gyms and a big water park. Pretty much everything a family wants.

My parents moved our family from Seattle to this town* in Arizona in 2001 when I was in high school. I would have never thought that years later Tyler and I would buy a house in this town. We would have not been able to afford it but because of the economy we were able to buy a bank-owned home. It was just perfect!

We’re so happy to be living here and be only less than 4 miles away from my parents. I love running into my parents and friends at the grocery store or any other store in this town. Sometimes we even drive by each other. Remember that surprise birthday party we had for my parents? I was so nervous about running into my parents at the store when we were all at the grocery store with out of town relatives. Later my dad admitted that he almost came over to my house on his way home from the hardware store on the day of the party. I’m so glad he didn’t! It shows that this town is small but that’s what we all love about it and we all share the same appreciation for this town.

Anyways, I could swear that more than half of the people living here don’t work or one spouse makes enough that the other spouse doesn’t need to work. There are some days where I feel like I’m the only one going to work. The other day I was looking at the community center schedule to see what kind of fitness classes I could take and it seemed like there were more options during the work day than before/after work. The town just looks so alive during the days that I feel like I’m the only one that doesn’t have a tree with money growing on it.

The only negative thing about living here is rules of HOA. We have gotten a few letters about parking. We’re not supposed to park on the street EVER. We even asked where our guests are supposed to park if someone stays overnight or if we have a party. They didn’t even give us an answer and just said no parking on the street for any reason. Seriously!?! We have noticed that they usually check during office hours so we just will be sure to not park on the side of the street during the days. I have already told our frequent visitors to park on the street at the house across the street. Who cares because that house is a vacation home and it’s barely occupied, ha!

A lot of families here have electric golf carts to get around in town which is smart when it comes to saving gas for our vehicles! I swear if the gas prices continue to go up this summer, we’re going to have to consider buying a golf cart! It’ll be perfect for Tyler since we only have one car and he has a company truck. He obviously can’t use the company truck for personal use. I’m sure Tyler would rather buy a brand new car or a motorcycle (keep on dreaming, Tyler!).

This place is home to us and we are proud to live here!

*Even though the picture gives the name away, I don’t want to type it out and have my post appear when someone searches the town.