So… last time I wrote, I mentioned that I was hoping to share some specific news with you – well here it is!  Kenta and I are getting married!!!  July 30th, 2017, 4pm, at the Mt. Baker Rotary Building in Lynden, WA.  You may have seen pictures from the proposal already on Facebook, but here is the story of how the day went.

The Proposal

On a beautiful Friday afternoon toward the end of April, Kenta took me on a drive.  He had a few things planned, and while I had an idea what might happen that afternoon, I didn’t know when or how!  We were supposed to be having dinner with a group of friends, and even had committed to bring part of the dinner.  So while I was wondering how that would work out, I tried to sit back and enjoy the ride.

But let me back up.  First we got coffee, then a snack.  Evidently we had some time to kill, and with my suggestions for coffee/snack, I helped figure that out.  🙂  After that, we started driving.  I had a feeling we would go towards the water, and that’s indeed where we went.  We drove along and around Birch Bay, and while I wondered if we would stop there, we kept going.  Eventually I figured out that we were going out to Semiahmoo, a beautiful spit-bay area that we hadn’t visited for a long time.

In fact, we hadn’t been there since before we actually started dating.  One evening at the end of 2015, we went chasing Northern Lights.  We didn’t find them that night, but we did find out that I have a sense of humor, which was a really good thing for us.

So we parked, and started walking along the beach.  Kenta was positively giddy the whole time.  It was incredibly adorable.  I remember mentioning something to the effect of “I don’t think we’re going to find any northern lights today.”  We hugged, and I noticed that his heart was absolutely racing.  We walked a few more steps, and then Kenta turned around, got on one knee, pulled something out of his pocket, and asked me to marry him!  Of course I said yes!  Then there was some fumbling with the box, putting on the beautiful ring, laughing, crying, hugging… After a minute or two of that, two dear friends jumped out from behind the bushes with their camera.  Kenta had thought of everything, and it was quite perfect.  Funny thing is that he didn’t know that our friend Megan was a professional photographer,  but he just happened to ask her and her husband along for this adventure.  After hugs, congratulations, and admiring the ring, and some more photos, we continued down the beach looking for the special spot where Kenta discovered that I wasn’t as serious about life as he had initially thought.

So that wintry evening over a year ago when we were chasing the northern lights… I was wearing totally unsuitable shoes for the adventure.  They were cute, but had almost no tread.  It was kind of frosty that night.  So we walked on one side of the spit, bathed in the glow of the lights from White Rock, BC, and decided it was too bright on that side.  There was also an almost full moon.  We walked to the inland side of the spit to see what we could see there.  We had to go down a little bank to get to the beach. I went down first, and attempted to run down.  Normally if you can keep your feet going fast enough, you’ll make it to the bottom of steep things.  Not this night, however. I slipped and fell on the frosty grass and ended up on my backside at the bottom of the little bank.  At which point I just had to start laughing!  I wasn’t hurt, thankfully.  Evidently it was in this moment that Kenta realized that I had a sense of humor, and that’s where he started falling for me.

Eventually we did find that spot, quite a way down the beach.  We took some more pictures there, and then decided it was high time we all go get some dinner.

Kenta proposed exactly 100 days before our wedding.  🙂  Here are a few pictures, and there are more at our wedding website – http://theknot.com/us/kenta-vanessa.

Please keep praying for us!

Planning a wedding is not for the faint of heart!  We are taking things one day at a time, and have most of the big things in place.  Now it’s working out the little details.  We would covet your prayers over the next few months.  Never in my life have I wanted to plan a wedding.  It’s not on my list of fun things to do.  But a-planning we go anyway!  Please pray for grace as we work on the important things and for all the details, but also we are trying hard to keep focused on the fact that we are preparing to build a life together after the wedding.  The wedding is only one day, and it’s day one of the rest of our lives.

Can I have your address please?

If you haven’t already received a wedding invitation, it’s because I can’t find your mailing address.  I know you may be far away and/or busy this summer, but I would still love to send you an invitation!  Also, we will figure out a way to web-stream our wedding as it happens, so even if you can’t be there in person, technology can bring us closer.  We will have those details on our theknot page as it gets closer to the time.

Thank you for being part of our journey!

Love,

Vanessa and Kenta