For New Year's Eve Chelsea flew out to Virginia from Utah. We had planned on going to New York City, but those plans fell through so we decided to drive down to Corolla, NC where Eric's family was staying. Andrea and Rick, Aaron Cummings, and Spencer all came along too. We had a great couple of days off-roading on the beach and relaxing.

 

New Year's Eve night we all went to a local club to count down to the year 2002. Afterwards we went back to the house and we sat in the hot tub. Eventually it was just us and Aaron. Aaron left to go call a friend, and somehow the conversation turned to Christmas gifts.

 

Eric: Aaron's talked me out of doing some really stupid things.

Chelsea: Really? Like what?

Eric: Well, for Christmas I was going to give you a velvet ring box and get down on one knee... and then when you opened the box there would be nothing inside.

Chelsea: I'm glad you didn't do that!

Eric: Why?

Chelsea: Because I would have been disappointed.

Eric: Why would you be disappointed?

Chelsea: I don't know.

Eric: Well, you would have said "no", right?

Chelsea: No.

Eric: What would you say?

Chelsea: ...the opposite of no.

Eric: Oh my gosh... (incredulously) Do you want to marry me?!

Chelsea: O.K.

 

At this point Eric was so freaked out he couldn't look at Chelsea and he ducked under the water to compose himself. We were both somewhat shocked, since we had never discussed our feelings about this before. It was definitely out of the blue! The first people we told were Aaron (who was waiting in the next room so as not to interrupt our conversation) and Andrea. In the morning we told our parents.

 

As soon as we got back to Utah we went ring shopping, and a few weeks later, we went to an Italian restaurant in Park City. After we ate we walked through the streets, and then got back in the car and drove into Salt Lake City to the state capitol. Eric proposed on the steps of the capitol overlooking the valley. He explained that the evening represented our journey together - from his mission in Italy, where he first knew he would marry me, to the capitol building, representing our future home in the DC area, and looking down on the temple, the place where we'll be married. It's been a long road, with a lot of unexpected twists, but at the end of it all that matters is that we know we want to always be together.