Oh, my mister!

Well, I'm back in the swing of school here in Tennessee,
and my mister is in Haiti.

What?

Yes, that's right. He's in Haiti.

He's filming a documentary for Hands and Feet, which is an organization that combats corrupt orphanages, rescues the children, and builds safe new places for them.

He's armed with a camera, a portable dolly called a flider or something, lots of water and energy bars, and his good friends Bryan and Bryce. (Bryce happens to be engaged to my good friend Kaity K.)

Now, about this engagement. (Mine, I mean!)

I was trying to wait until we had some pictures, but that might be awhile, so I'll just go ahead and tell you the scoop.

Basically, it's all about bluebirds. (Buckle your seat-belts... I'm really detail oriented.)
The first time I ever really, really talked to Colton was at Bryce and Kaity's halloween party. I dressed up as Middle Earth, he dressed up as the Son of Rambow. (Have you seen the movie? If you haven't, do.) I already had been developing a pretty wicked crush on him since the summer, but our conversations had been fairly limited to photography. But on the night of the party, we ended up sitting on an ice cooler talking about our families, adoption (His family has added four adopted children in the past few years), school, dreams, and other stuff. He tells me that he and the guys were going to the Symphony the next night, for the Halloween Boo-tacular. Later, I got back to the room. "Girls, we HAVE to go."
So we did! And it was lovely. I love the symphony, plus they had all these storm troopers marching around, and Dumbledore, and they played many macabre-inspired pieces that I was familiar with.
Afterwards, we headed over to the 24-hr diner to get some coffee and cheesecake. I discussed literature with Colton and his roommate Phillip, and Colton shared with us what a dismal week he had been having. (His car had been driven off a sort-of cliff by a fellow film-maker while working on a short (the guy was okay other than a head gash, but the car was not), his laptop had been stolen, and he scraped the top of his dad's truck while going into the parking garage for the concert). I decided to make a bold move...

I've always thought that bluebirds were lucky. (Ever since I saw a Shirley Temple movie about it at my grandma's house when I was a kid.) So I drew a bluebird on a card with my trusty prismacolors, and told Colton I hoped it would change his luck for the better. The day he got it, his laptop turned up!
After that, we started talking regularly and were dating within the next month or two.

Our year anniversary was on December 9th. Colton gave me a special letter with a big chunk cut out of the middle. A few days later, he gave me a similar letter. I began to get my hopes up.
On Early Christmas (caused annually by conflicting work schedules), I opened my gift from him and saw a hand-drawn bluebird. It said that I had convinced Colton that bluebirds were lucky, and that if I was lucky enough to find two more by December 25th, the day commonly known as Christmas, I might have much, much, more. Bingo! So then I was fairly certain what was coming.

The next Christmas celebration was on Christmas Eve at the Davies. I had another gift under the tree. It was a beautiful necklace with a bluebird inside, and another card inviting me to go on an after-dinner adventure. We bundled up and set out in the forest, built a fort out of sheets and chairs, and ate cookies and milk - a recreation of the first date I planned for us. He handed me a flashlight and told me to explore. After some scrambling over rocks and pushing through foliage, I finally saw something hanging from a tree... it was a watercolor painting (of a bluebird, naturally) that I had made for Colton ages ago. On the back were pasted the cut-out pieces of the letters. Once I got done reading them, Colton pulled out of his coat the last of the bluebird cards. It said, basically, that I was the One. And that I always talk about having all things in common, but there were two things he still wanted to share with me - a home and a name. I cried, and he cried, and we stood there for a long time, and then he took out the ring.

We're getting married!

Wedding plans to come later :)