4 years ago....

With all of the cardinal and gold in the air...oh yeah, and the black and gold too...I get all revved up for the big rival game, which always seems to fall during my birthday weekend. It was 4 years ago today that my sister and I were at Jack Trice Stadium watching a great game and an equally great victory over the Hawks: 23-3. I had to call my boyfriend at work throughout the game, and try very hard to not rub the updates in his face, but to be more of a newscaster since he was under the bondage of retail sales.When my sister and I got back to Des Moines, we were planning a cook out with Jake's parents. The deal that Jake and I had prior to the game, was that the "loser" would wear the "winner's" shirt out to a restaurant and pay for dinner for the "winner." Jake decided that we needed to go and get him a T-shirt at Target before we went to his parent's house. We left Sarah to just lounge around, since our faces had been fried in the sun all day.

On the way over to Target, Jake got an interesting phone call from his mother, and they seemed to be having a bit of a serious discussion about A&E party dip. I was totally confused, but amused at the same time at the crazy antics of Jake and his mom. We approached West Glen, and Jake told me that before Target he wanted to show me some little frogs that had taken up residence at the fountain in front of Josephs. He told me to head over to the fountain, and he popped the trunk of his car. I remember looking at him saying, "How do you expect me to find these frogs? How big are they?" before I started towards the fountain. He said, "Just go over there, I am coming!"

I knew that something was going on, as I looked back at him taking off his T-shirt to reveal an ISU t-shirt already underneath his disguise. It was all very fishy, but he stayed in character and was pretending to look for these imaginary frogs. I said something like, what is with the shirt? You already have one, so why did we need to....

Jake started to make THE SPEECH, and was saying how the shirts we had on matched like we were on the same team, and how we would always be on the same team forever. He recited a poem to me, and whipped out a gorgeous ring and got down on one knee. I started crying and shaking, and I think I even said, "Stop stop" not meaning to stop, but to slow down because everything was happening so fast. When he did say, "Will you marry me?" I said, "Of course!"