It's Official

And now we are heading into the planning of a wedding. It isn't set to take place for another year yet. Our stipulation was that PearlKeeper must be eighteen, so it is tenatively planned for the first Saturday after her eighteenth birthday. These are two remarkable young people, if I may say so, and we look forward to seeing God's plans unfold in their lives.

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After being betrothed for 2 1/2 years, Nathan was given the okay to give her the ring any time after she was seventeen. He didn't waste a moment. It took place on the evening of her birthday. Even though half of our community (even the ladies at our bank!) knew about the plan and had seen the ring, PearlKeeper was kept in the dark so she would have a big birthday surprise.

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Over the years we (his parents and hers) have been taking them out on these occasional triple dates. This time Nathan had it all planned out. We went to our standard spot - a scenic pedestrian bridge over a beautiful river. We parents took off walking quickly (it was cold anyway so we had the nice excuse of wanting to keep warm) and left them some privacy for the surprise proposal. When we met back up with them, the bride-to-be was beaming and she was wearing the ring.

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We asked them to pose for the picture above since we were not present at the original site and it was way too cold to stand around and take pictures anyway.

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Afterwards, we all went to a lovely restaurant and had a delicious dinner. We had the choice of walking from the bridge to the restaurant or driving. On the bridge Mr. Potts had given PearlKeeper permission to take Nathan's arm for the first time. When Nathan's dad asked them if they would rather walk or drive to the restaurant Nathan replied, "I want to walk. I think you can see why! " That really tickled me for some reason. I guess it meant a lot to me that he could be that open with all of us.

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The ring is perfect for her dainty fingers. Nathan can not even get it past his first knuckle on his pinky! Just one more example of his excellent taste! :)

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