And so they got engaged

DALLAS: "I cant wait for our life together to begin"

AMANDA: "Dallas! It already has!! It began a while ago!"

This is an interchange we have had a few times. Now D is in the healthy habit of referring to our life together as the present.

And although I don't like the idea that there is some milestone that we are looking forward to that enables us to "begin life", our story on this blog needs to begin somewhere, so I will start with the engagement.

THE STORY

Dallas and I were visiting Dallas' parents in Wylie Texas. I arrived Saturday night, and the following night was a BIG meet the family gathering at their beautiful home. Like, BIG. Probably 50+ Packards' came over. Dallas introduced me to grandparents, cousins, uncles, aunts, nieces and nephews, second cousins, cousins of those second cousins, cousins of those cousins of cousins. It's like, a lot of cousin. Way too many cousins for me to keep track of. I'm bad with names, and also kind of bad with faces, so I kept quizzing myself in my mind to keep track.  Which sort of didn't work.

But the night was a total blast. I loved bonding over southern Alberta with Grandpa Packard, hearing about the blackmail Christmas home videos, talking Jimmy Fallon with Camber and Scott, watching Dallas give words of advice to his adolescent cousins. I loved playing with all kids in the game room, giving piggy back rides and pinky swearing we would go to the waterpark. I loved hearing "how we met" stories and telling ours. It was a lovely evening.

It was a big day so I was ready to hit they hay after we said our last few goodbyes. I slept soundly through the night and woke up on Monday March 17th (st patricks day, by sheer coincidence) to a knock at my door. Dallas came in and knelt down beside my bed. I was so excited that I completely forgot about how horrific I likely looked. He asked me to marry him and opened up a small white box which held the most beautiful ring I have ever seen. I

And so, they got engaged. Call it crazy, call it luck of the Irish, call it whatever you like. Me? I think I'll just call it perfect.