Life Update: I'm Engaged!
By Libby Austin
I’m engaged. I’m engaged? I’m engaged!
I am. To the love of my life.
So I want to share with you this important event in my life!
It’s been nearly three months now.. I know, a little late. However, we have been totally soaking in our newfound title, and absolutely enjoying every minute of it. I want to take you back to three months ago, when he popped the question, as well as a bit of a timeline of our whole relationship!
THE FIANCÉ
Meet my lovely, handsome, kind and caring fiancé, Stew. He is the most amazing man I have ever met. He is nearly 9 years older than I am! (🤤) Stew is such a free spirit and is always down for an adventure. When we met, he was working as a scientist in a plane, but since then he has accepted an amazing job as a hydrographer, mapping ocean floors! He does everything he can to make sure that I am happy and fulfilled. Everyday I spend with him feels like the best day of my life.
HOW WE MET
We often get asked how we met, considering we lived 22-hours apart.
We met on a lovely July evening in Gulfport, Mississippi, after a long day of work for the both of us. We had been snapping a few days prior to our first time meeting, so I guess I have snapchat to thank for this relationship, hahaha.
Stew was only down here for work. He actually spent about a month here, but I met him just 5 days before his work trip ended. We spent everyday of his work trip together, and when his trip ended, he pushed out his flight and hotel reservations a few more days so we could spend more time together.
He did eventually have to fly back to his home in Boston, so I didn’t know how this relationship would continue. I remember feeling sad when meeting the best man I have ever ran into, knowing that the time would end when he left to go home.
THE START OF OUR RELATIONSHIP
After Stew went home to Boston, life continued on as normal for me. I continued working, as a Realtor, and he continued on with his daily life. He initiated a FaceTime call about 2 days after leaving, though. Which turned into FaceTiming and texting everyday.
About a week into being apart, we planned our first trip together! We both took the long journey to Boulder, Colorado. The trip was originally planned to be five days long, but turned into a week, because we were having too much fun!
In Breckenridge, Stew asked me to be his girlfriend. I just met him about 2 and a half weeks prior, and did not expect HIM to ask ME to be his girlfriend, because of the distance! But he did, and I could not have been more excited.
We spent the week getting to know each other better, all while exploring Colorado. He rented a beautiful BMW and we drove all over the state, hiking and having picnics. The hotels we stayed in were stunning, and the dinners we had were always perfect. I never wanted to leave!
Alas, we did have to go home to our jobs. But that didn’t stop us from seeing each other, clearly.
MID RELATIONSHIP
Stew’s next work trip was in Alaska for a month, so he went there, and I grinded out my work back home. Until we met back up in Oregon!
Oregon was the trip of a lifetime. We explored half of the state, and even ventured into Washington a little bit. We spent a week in Oregon living it up, just like we did in Colorado.
Then life took us in different locations, of course. He flew to Florida for work, and I was home working. For just a few days that is, lol. A couple of weeks after returning home from Oregon, I found out I was pregnant. I had to fly to Florida to sort things out with Stew.
We moved in together after about 5 months of dating! That may sound a little soon, but most things in our relationship happened fast, and I wouldn’t change it now. Everything has worked out great!
I lived in our home for a few months, mostly alone, while Stew continued to travel for work, and still had access to his apartment in Boston. We found out we were having our baby girl, and were trying to settle things to be prepared to be parents together in just a few short months!
Our adventurous relationship continued, though. Now we have been to over 30 states together. We love to travel, and we continue to travel even after becoming parents to our beautiful baby.
A little besides the point, but our baby moon in Arizona was absolutely to DIE FOR!
THE PROPOSAL
And now we’re engaged! Please allow me to tell you all about it!
We had a trip planned to a resort in Orlando for March. We obviously have a child, so alone time isn’t always written into the schedule. We figured a resort would be the perfect vacation with a small child, that way whenever she needed to nap, we could just pack up and head to the room. After our 5 day trip in Orlando, Stew told me we were going to go visit his brother in Miami for a few days! How exciting!
We drove to Miami the day before my birthday and checked into our hotel. We got ready to go have dinner with Stew’s brother and his girlfriend!
The next day, on my birthday, we spent the morning and mid day tooling around Orange Grove. I knew we had dinner plans to celebrate my birthday, and Stew’s brother and his girlfriend were watching our baby!
I got ready for dinner, and Stew went to drop off the baby with her aunt and uncle. He picked me up, and instead of driving us to dinner, he decided we were going to check out Key Biscayne. I was totally on board, but a little confused because that was not what we talked about, hahaha.
We parked and got out and started walking along the beach. He was definitely acting a little suspicious, when he dropped to one knee and said something along the lines of, “I have enjoyed every minute with you and know I want to spend the rest of my life with you.” 🥹🥹🥹 Tears began to fly down my face I must admit. He then says “smile for the camera!” And his little brothers girlfriend jumped out from behind a palm tree with her very large, DSLR camera. I was totally in shock!
We then took a bunch of photos, which I am so grateful for. Like Ashley, you have my heart for that girl!!
After the proposal we went and had a fabulous dinner in downtown Miami. It was such a wonderful night and I could not have asked for anything better for a proposal.
THE RING
Now what you have probably been waiting for…. THE RING!
We do have a child together, so we did talk about getting married before he proposed. I thought I wanted a round solitaire band, but the one time I went to try on rings, I absolutely hated the way it looked on me. Stew picked out an oval and it was absolutely gorgeous, and looked like it belonged on my hand.
We didn’t discuss it again.
He presented me with the most beautiful 2 carat oval diamond, on a gold solitaire band. The ring sparkles in any kind of light, and is the most precious piece of jewelry I have ever owned. I love it so much!
THE WEDDING
JK! We are still enjoying the engagement and aren’t in too much of a rush to plan the wedding. Obviously, we want to be married, and we don’t want to wait forever, but planning weddings are super stressful and we want to enjoy this engagement as much as possible! We have tooled with all kinds of ideas, but with our families being across the country from each other, we aren’t really too sure what we want to do. We will most likely have our wedding where we live, because that’s what’s most convenient to us!
But what we have talked about was the honeymoon. Catch me in South East Asia 2025😝
How crazy that this is my life?! Anyway, as always, thank you guys so much for reading!