I got Engaged!

So, guess who got engaged over Christmas? Well, I guess that'd be me! :D

This is me, and my fiance (!!!) Photo credit to my friend Lamar Onko.

Okay, now for the nitty gritty details for those of you interested people ;)

Kyle and I have dated 5 years. Yes. Five. We are those people.

We met when Kyle was 18 and I was 20, and were friends for 2.5 years before we started dating. We met at Tyler Junior College in the media dept, where he worked and I liked to do homework/socialize.

This picture is from my 21st birthday, when Kyle drove 35 minutes to attend a birthday bash of a girl he had said about 5 words to at that point. Social functions are his least favorite thing. (If this were a When Harry Met Sally interview, this is the point when I'd lean into the camera and say "and that's when I knew")

I transferred to A&M, and then he decided that was the only school he was interested in, and transferred two semesters later.

My roommate Ashley and I showed him the College Station ropes. Here we are pond hopping. In November.

 

If you're going to paint yourself blue for a free dinner, you might as well hit up both Blue Bakers. 

Then we started dating, and we dated 5 years. We had set educational and financial goals we wanted to achieve before we got married and frankly, we aren't the type of people who rush into things. (And if you are? That's great! It takes all kinds! If everyone were the same type of person the world would be a boring place.)

Kyle is currently working on his Master's in Plant Breeding at Texas A&M, and the goal was always to have his master's degree before we got married and moved somewhere to work on his PhD. 

So. How it went down.

It was a pretty and cold Sunday in December, I had only one afternoon shoot, and then Kyle and I headed out to one of our favorite spots to watch the sun set. We like this local park that has a large lake and a pier that extends into the water about 75 feet. It's a nice secluded spot to feed the ducks/ turtles/nutria and watch the sun go down. So we feed ducks for a while, and then Kyle gets down on one knee and pops the question and I say yes.

Did I know he was going to propose? Of course. We do not normally watch the sun set like we're in the middle of our own personal romantic comedy, and Kyle is not generally nervous to hang out with me ;)

I have a ring. Which is frankly rather surprising to me. In fact the first thing I said after "Yes" was "I thought we weren't going to do the whole ring thing?" as I am not really a jewelry person. The ring is my late grandma's ring, and my parents gave it to Kyle as they thought I might wear a heirloom ring. It's too large for me and so it's being sized, but I love the sentiment behind it and I may actually wear it.

We are working on wedding dates, it will most like be between July-Oct of this year, and then Kyle will graduate from A&M in December 2013 and we will mostly like move out of the state. Both of those factors are influencing how I'm scheduling dates for 2013 and I'll keep you updated as soon as I have a more set timeline.  

I am super excited to marry my best friend, and to become Mrs. Burns! How neat will it be to have a last name people can pronounce? VERY NEAT! And my new initials will be a color space! srgb! It's kismet! Besides, I think he adds nicely to my family!

 

(again, photo credit to Lamar Onko, who did a stellar job with our family portraits this December. L-R, back row, Kyle, Myself, Hannah, Israel, Sam, Lydia, my brother-in-law Chris, Front Row, Michael, Dad holding my nephew Otto, Mom holding my niece Meredith, & Abbey.)