(written from Chelsea’s perspective)

After church Saturday night Valentine’s Day, David and I went downtown to the Stone Grill Restaurant with some friends. After waiting THREE HOURS for our orders to arrive, we found out that they had run out of stones to cook the meat on. We got a lot of free stuff, to the point where it was almost pathetic and everyone was laughing.

After exiting the restaurant, we decided to go walk around.

David and I were walking around the Sacramento Capitol building. We went inside the building at 1am. We both agreed we felt like we were walking in the twilight zone – we couldn’t believe we had gained access to the building at such a late hour!

So we were walking on the 2nd floor of the Capitol… We paused for a moment and stood there looking out of the window looking out at the Tower Bridge.

I remember distinctly thinking in my mind at that moment, “Lord, I want to be next to this man for the rest of my life, please let me support him and be his helpmate.” I had no idea in that moment what was coming! I just remember standing there looking at the bridge and feeling very strongly in my heart that I wanted to be next to this man for the rest of my life.

Five minutes later, we walked down to the first floor… I saw all of the other couples standing there by the statue smiling at us. They weren’t moving. I saw people fiddling with their cameras but I didn’t put two and two together until David got down on his knee. Even then, I was starting to laugh and about to say, “Very funny, let’s go.” because I was SOOOOO oblivious! I actually thought he was joking!

He pulled out the ring and said, “Chelsea, will you marry me? I love you.”

It took me a minute to register…. Only then did I say ‘YES!’ We embraced, and I kissed him on the cheek. From the Capitol building, we went to his parents’ house then to mine to announce our engagement to everyone. The wedding date was decided 2 hours after engagement (October 10th!) and we were up until 5am talking with everyone. By the time I fell into bed, it was 5:30am. I had been engaged for almost 5 hours!

I didn’t realize the significance of us looking at the bridge while standing in the capitol until later on… A bridge is a symbol God has used with me over and over throughout my life in regards to my calling to bridge the deaf/hearing worlds…. and David has a political calling on his life (hence, the Capitol)… so I feel like having those two things right next to each other was a very significant symbol of our future together as a couple. I couldn’t have asked for a better location!

Many people ask if I was suspicious – I will admit that I saw it coming, but it never occurred to me that he would ask me on Valentine’s Day….

If he had done something super romantic or if it had just been the two of us - I would’ve probably been more suspicious. David has been very good at surprising me from day one and I don’t think it’s a skill he’ll lose anytime soon!