The Engagement Story

On December 19, 2009 it was closing night of Little Women, a production at the Old Barn Theatre. Gwendolyn and Paul had two shows that day and Paul was very tired. He would sleep in the green room in between scenes because he didn't get any sleep the night before. After the last show, they were going to go to Chelsea and Jonathan's (Paul's brother and his wife) for dinner to celebrate the show being over. Only, they had strike first. Paul was in a huge hurry to leave and everyone thought it was funny. He carried his duffle bag around with him the whole time, even when he was vacuuming. They got cleaned up and Gwendolyn and Paul went back to Logan. Gwendolyn had made cheesecake for dessert, so she had to go pick it up from their apartment. She called Jonathan and Chelsea and told them they were on their way, picked up the cheesecake and headed to their house. They went in Gwendolyn took the cheesecake into the kitchen. On her way out she noticed their video camera, and said, "Hey, Chelsea, you left your video camera on." Chelsea quickly said, "oh really?" and pretended to turn it off. Gwendolyn went to sit into the chair that she ALWAYS sits in when they are there, and Paul pulled her off the chair and had her sit on the other side. Which she didn't mind. Then Chelsea said they were busy that day so they had to get take out, but Gwendolyn didn't care. Then Gwendolyn saw her pull out a Cafe Rio bag. (Side note number 1: Gwendolyn hates Cafe Rio more than anything and has had to be polite and eat it on several dates. Side note number 2: Paul knows this!) Gwendolyn began to quietly panic and put her head down on the table so that no one would know. She was worried because she didn't want to offend Jonathan and Chelsea because they had invited them over for dinner. (Side note number 3: Jonathan and Chelsea knew she hated Cafe Rio and knew she was trying to hide her devastation the whole time.) Gwendolyn continued to talk about the show as she made faces while they weren't looking. (Side note number 4: The video camera was always watching and picked up everything!) They then told her that they got her a salad so it didn't need to be heated up, so she could go ahead and start eating while they heated the rest up. Gwendolyn slowly opened the Cafe Rio tin, and figured the longer she took to open it, the longer until she would have to eat it. Poor Paul was just dying for her to open it and she was taking FOREVER! As she finally opened it she screamed and threw the tin lid. Inside the whole tin was full of sunflowers facing up. (Side note number 5: Gwendolyn's favorite flower is sunflowers and Paul had been bringing them to her every few weeks for the couple months that they were dating.) As she took off the lid all the petals that had been squished unfolded. Not only was her food massive amounts of yellow and brown, it was MOVING! She turned to Paul in shock ready to tell him that Cafe Rio was going to eat her when he was down on his knee. At that point she looked back and saw the ring that had been wired to the center of the middle sunflower. He asked her to marry him and she said "YES" as she pretty much fell off the chair into his arms. For the next half hour it was mass chaos of Gwendolyn giggling and saying, "I'm getting married!" over and over and Paul floating around on cloud nine. Chelsea had gotten the video camera down and videoed the whole thing as Jonathan laughed! Jonathan said, he didn't know whose reaction was better Paul's or Gwendolyn's. Paul put the ring on Gwendolyn's right hand the first time and Jonathan had to tell him to put it on the left hand! Paul simply said, "I've never done this before!" It was an awesome evening, and after the excitement settled down as much as it could considering everything, they called their parents and brothers and sisters to tell the news and then had a wonderful dinner that Chelsea had made and hidden. It was pretty awesome. Gwendolyn is so excited to have a brother sister in the valley and she is so glad it's Jonathan and Chelsea!