About 6-7 weeks ago, we were watching her and her boyfriends dog. She wasn't around as she works night shift as an RN, had worked the night before, and worked that night. Her boyfriend dropped their dog at our place, as he had a family event. No problem.

He got back to our place at about 6 in the afternoon. Ok. I greeted him, walked in the house with him, thinking he'd get the dog and take off on his 45-50 drive home. He took his shoes off, and sat down. So, I sat down. He, we, made small talk. I was thinking "I want to finish my truck" but I said nothing. 45 minutes go by. And then he said "Arch, would you give me your blessing if I asked Sooga to marry me?"

I looked at him for a bit and said "Let me ask you this: If Sooga was sitting here right now, and you asked her, what would she say?" ( I knew the answer) He said "Oh, she'd definitely say yes."

I said "Then you absolutely have our blessing. Well, MY blessing. I can't speak for my wife." Of course she said yes.


So, today was the day. He had set it up as it was a 'his family picture" thing, so his family was obviously going to be there, and she'd suspect nothing. My, my wife, and my son and his spouse (who live in Columbus and drove up solely for this) got there early. The young mans mom told us where to "hide" We were in a very rural/wooded area.

The plan was for the photographer to start taking pictures, and then for his dad to take their dog on a walk while the photographer was taking pictures of others in the family. Then, J (the boyfriend) would come to get his dad saying "dad, the photographer is ready for you now."

His dad had just walked the dog over to us, and we put a bandana on the dog that said "Will you marry my dad?" (the dog's dad, J - the boyfriend)

J walked back. The photographer got them to pose with Sooga's back to where the four of us, me, wife, son, son in law) would be coming from. Worked to perfection. Sooga read the bandana just as J knelt down and asked. Sooga never turned around for at least a minute. When she did, she saw me and mom and was surprised, of course. Then she saw her brother and another J, and her mouth dropped to the ground.

She came over and gave us all hugs, totally amazed at what had happened. She had a few tears of joy, which caused a bug to fly in my eye, and a single tear came out of my eye.

Then, after the REAL pictures, everyone came over to our house to eat.

Blessed, enjoyable, yet coolish day.