The start of our story

Just eight days before Gant proposed I sat down and wrote this :

"Happiness.

When I think about this stage in my life and what I want to look back and remember... I want to remember this feeling of absolute complete happiness. A kind of cheerfulness that comes when you find what brightens your spirit and inspires you to become a better person. I want to bottle it up and hold it close."

May Eighteenth Twenty Seventeen. New York City. Brooklyn Bridge Skyline. Sunset.

A week later, I was standing on the edge of the East River, just to the left of the Brooklyn Bridge, soaking in the sunset and thinking how life couldn't get any sweeter. The air was clean and crisp, the sun was just beginning to rest on the tip-tops of the buildings, a sailboat was sailing in the water and there was an undeniable peaceful energy that hugged all around me. I remember being content with everything in that moment.

[Day leading up to proposal] I spent the day with my family, exploring a city that I had long dreamed about visiting. We got off the plane that morning at 6:45 am and had a day full of shows and shopping planned! First on the list was the Kelly & Ryan show. My mom had scheduled an Uber to pick us up from the airport and it turned out, our Uber couldn't find us and we were just desperate to get to the show, so we hopped in with another driver. This turned out to be an interesting ride..he pulled out from the airport and said "I am going to take you guys along the back roads so that we can get there faster, let me see your phone so I can type it in and get the Uber all set up." That is when he told us "It is going to be $200." "$200??What!?? Why!" "Because ma'am you are in an Uber XL in NYC and you have luggage and the traffic is horrible and ma'am this is a competitive price!" "No we are not paying, it told us it was only going to be $40."...A few heated sentences later and we were on the street, refusing to let this man scam us while he continued to rant "it is a reasonable price and Uber controls the prices but I can cut you a deal and do it for $175." So here we are, an hour into our NYC trip and we are in the middle of a neighborhood in Queens with all of our luggage on the side of the road. A couple seconds later, a man walked out of his apartment with his baby asleep on his chest, looking at us confused to why there were 4 strangers outside his driveway? My dad went over, talked to him and he ended up giving us really good advice on how to get to our hotel. So we started on our way and it still took us forever to find our hotel. Needless to say, we missed the Kelly & Ryan show and at one point I just threw a kimono I was wearing into a trashcan because it was so hot and I thought we were never going to find the hotel, haha. But we made it and dropped off our luggage and headed back out to the streets on NYC!

Our first stop was lunch and canal street! We ate and then stepped up from the subway looking for the right person to buy a purse from. We weaved through the stands, the purses on the sidewalk, the endless amounts of people until we found the purses that we wanted! It was about 4 pm now and we stopped at a little cookie shop and ate at a park to sit down for a second. It was a beautiful evening and it finally came time for our last stop of the day, the Brooklyn Bridge. I personally wanted to see the Bridge another day but once we got there, it was beautiful and I remember thinking the only thing to make that moment better was if the person I loved the most was there to share it with me.

And that's when someone tapped me on the shoulder.

I turned around and Gant was standing there. A total surprise. I never in a million years thought that Gant was going to really be in NY. My dad had told me two days prior to the trip that he had gotten last minute cheap tickets through a friend at work. Gant was supposed to be at home just getting off of work and watching my dogs?? But he was standing there, dressed in a blue long sleeve button up and tan khaki pants. My initial feeling was that I was relieved. I wanted so bad to have Gant there in with me. I wanted him to be there to experience all of it, memories of us walking the streets, not memories that have to tell him about it when I got home. None the less, the first words out of my mouth were "What are you doing here?"

He just smiled, gave me a hug and said "I came to see you." I leaned in and hugged him back, filled with so much joy to see him.

Then took my hand and said "I came to ask you a question." This is when I knew what was coming. The man that I love dearly was about to ask me to marry him. My heart was racing. We had talked a lot about our future, the things that we wanted in this life and how we envisioned our goals taking place. We wanted to get married and had a broad timeline of when we wanted these things to take place. (I like surprises so I just told him I wanted to marry him and left all of the specifics to him.)

Then, he got down on one knee, trying to get a ring out of his pocket and said "Alora, I love you more than anything, will you spend eternity with me?"

YES!! A millon times over, yes!

He slipped the most beautiful ring on my finger and we just held each other. One of the most tender moments of my life.

We took a few pictures and walked just around the corner to Gio pizza, it was some of the best pizza I have ever had. After dinner, we topped the night off by walking the whole Brooklyn Bridge and then slipped away on a subway to our hotel. The best night of my life thus far.

The rest of our trip was pure magic. We floated around the city on Cloud 9... shopping, eating and enjoying all that NYC had to offer.

*the ring: I was in Utah for 3 weeks over Christmas break and one of those days Gant and I stopped into a small family owned jewelry store just to browse and see what they had. We skimmed the cases until we both saw my ring in rose gold, we were completely surprised but instantly knew that when the time came, that was the one. Gant returned to Utah two months later and had the ring custom made in yellow gold with a diamond he picked out. It is the most beautiful ring I have ever seen and I am completely in love with it.