ding, dong, the bells are gonna chime...

So, I'm sitting here in the Miller's living room checking my email in the early afternoon of a warm Sunday. None of this would seem out of the ordinary, except that every time I look down to type, there's a big sparkly rock on my left finger.

I'm getting married in October, to Joel Miller.

He took me out for a day of surprises in Santa Barbara yesterday. We went to a garden market for lunch, went whale watching in the early afternoon, then climbed up onto a huge rock on top of the Santa Barbara mountains. He gave me a speech, whipped out a beautiful antique-looking box, and with some tears from the both of us, he asked me to marry him.

To those outside out close friends and family, this might come as a big surprise. We didn't really go around advertising it to everyone. But the funny thing about it is, we knew what was going to happen almost right away. Months and months ago, as we were praying and just beginning out relationship, we both just... knew. It was a crazy feeling. I prayed that if this feeling that I was having wasn't of Christ, that he would take it away... but He didn't. It just kept developing. He kept teaching us and bringing us closer together, teaching us how to love and what love meant. And now, we're engaged, working at Hume this summer, and getting married in October.

Seems a bit whirlwind, doesn't it? To us, it really doesn't. It just makes total sense. I can't tell you how huge our desire is to serve Christ with our relationship, and how much we've sought to obey Him in the way we love and the timing of it all, and now here we are. It's cool to see how our relationship has grown. From meeting in the fall of '06, to becoming really good friends in the spring of '07, to praying and writing letters in the summertime, and then "becoming official" in the fall. God is so faithful. He's taught us so much, and will continue to do so for the rest of our lives!

Ah, I am so excited for this year. :)