Engagement!

This past Thursday I proposed to the love of my life. She said yes, and made me the happiest person alive. Her name is Elizabeth Kay Stroope (22 years old) and she is a senior nursing student at Baylor. I first met her over two years ago during a Truett class dinner (she is the daughter of a good friend/professor). I noticed she was beautiful, but I never thought twice about it because she was the “professor’s daughter.” Over the next 1 ½ years we got to know each other via the library, random visits to Dublin where she lived (I was visiting her dad).

This past fall we started e-mailing and talking A LOT, sometimes 2hrs a day. I knew this girl was amazing and I wanted to pursue her. After a conversation with her dad, I drove to Dallas (she had moved there because that was the center for Baylor's nursing school) and we had the DTR ("define the relationship"). Soon after that night we started dating. At about 6 weeks I woke up one morning and knew that I was going to marry this woman.

In early April I had a conversation with her mom and dad, after asking some important questions they happily said yes. I drove up to Dallas April 7^th and proposed. Here is how I did it. I got flowers that were form, or represented different cultures and countries (France, Italy, New Zealand, Honduras, France etc...) and secretly drove up to Dallas, while her roommates were preparing her for an evening on the town with them (but in reality me).. They pulled her from her room and I snuck in and placed the flowers in the room. She walked in saw me, saw the flowers and gave me a kiss.

We then went to reunion Tower in Dallas for dinner (a restaurant that is 30 floors up and rotates as it overlooks downtown Dallas... We had first gone to the Reunion Tower’s observation deck during our DTR weekend in Oct). After dinner I handed her an envelope. It contained a CD with love songs as well a passport. I took an old passport, photoshopped the pages and soon it was a passport explaining our own journey. It had pictures on side of the page and a sentence or two on the other). I then got on my knees and asked her to marry me.

My friend scott drove up and took pictures for us. The Wedding is Oct 22^nd here in Waco at Truett’s chapel. If you would like to see some pictures and part of the passport check out this website:

http://community.webshots.com/user/christopher_ellis-date - Look under “engagement.”

Liz is moving to Albuquerque June 6^th for a residency program in nursing. I will be joining her in Aug (I have no idea what I am doing). Feel free to e-mail or leave comments if you have any questions or thoughts!