A year ago Tyler and I set out on an adventure that literally changed the course of our futures forever! It’s wild to think that a year ago I was just Tyler’s girlfriend because it feels like we’ve been married forever now – and we haven’t even celebrated our first anniversary yet. But today, it feels like just yesterday that we were both standing on the edge of the Sunset Cliffs, his hand shaking, anxiously waiting to slide into his back pocket that was bulging with a ring I wasn’t sure was there, and me savoring the sherbet sunset and the sound of the waves lapping against the rocks below.
Our relationship leading up to this point had been quite the adventure already. Sometimes it felt like a fairytale, sometimes it felt more like a roller coaster in between long distance and insecurities about the future. What I do know though, is that the day I became Tyler Chamberlain’s girl was the day that began the best days of my life, and this trip was the perfect way to end the two-year dating chapter and begin a new adventure together; one that lasts for eternity.
The whole reason for our trip in the first place was already a special one – my mom wanted Tyler and I to spend some time in Southern California to meet her boyfriend (now fiancé!), his four kids, and his son-in-law, who were all coming down to meet my own siblings for the first time. The visit coincided with the timing of my hometown’s midwinter fair, which is something I had grown up going to every year, so we were more than happy to ditch the homework in Rexburg for a week and make the fourteen hour drive down to pay our future Brady Bunch fam a visit.
We’ve driven from Idaho to California together about five times now, and Tyler will always sweetly oblige to any of my off-road whims and will visit most stops I decide we have to see on our way down. This time, I decided to test the waters and see if Mystic Hot Springs in Southern Utah would be a go. It’s kind of out of the way, and it’s a paid attraction, which is usually the deciding factor for most of our side trips when we’re driving, but he said yes!
We made our way about an hour outside of St. George, changed into swimsuits, and pulled up to what felt like an abandoned Woodstock festival. The place was a bit run down with no one at the front desk and an honor system, slip-an-envelope-with-cash-under-the-door policy, and while not quite swarming with people, it was smaller and less “grand” than the photos I’d seen online make it look, and there were about a dozen and a half people taking photos, and taking up most of the baths. Needless to say, it didn’t quite live up to expectation, but it was still a fun detour, and it was fun waiting out the photographers with Tyler to take our own photos amidst the red rock and a pretty view.
Once we passed our way through St. George for a night, we finished the trek to Southern California to my little hometown. El Centro’s mid-winter “fair and fiesta” was always such an integral part of growing up in ‘the valley’ for me, so I was so excited to show Tyler a little more of my roots. Later, he said he thought about proposing at the fair but once we got there he quickly aborted the idea – think 50 year old fair rides held together with some rusty bolts, and shouting carnies on a sprawling dirt lot with 20 mph winds to mix it nicely with the smell of cow manure wafting in from the 4H animal pins. But hey, it’s home 🙂
We met my mom’s now-fiancé, then-boyfriend, and his kids, and I thought the trip was already off to a great start because we all clicked so well. We did some sand-dune body surfing at the Imperial Sand Dunes, had a great time at the fair, and ate at all my favorite local hometown restaurants.
Finally, the trip dwindled down to our very last day in California, and we had scheduled our trip back up to Idaho the following day. And still, my left hand was bare except for my manicure that I thought might have come in handy during this trip….but it wasn’t looking like it by now.
We decided to spend our last day in San Diego, and it really was the best day ever. We drove to La Jolla and stopped for lunch on Prospect Street and ate at a savory taco shop with a view of the cascading houses and palm trees on La Jolla’s beachy cliffs.
I had always wanted to check out the grounds of La Valencia hotel, a famously peach, high-end hotel on Prospect Street with views of the ocean. It did not disappoint! Peachy tones and palms made the hotel so picturesque, and I’m sure the staff were used to people coming in to take photos because we weren’t asked to leave…which is what I’m afraid of 99% of the time we shoot somewhere that’s not completely void of people.
After scoping out La Valencia, my heart started pounding, because we were headed to one of my all time favorite places in San Diego. As you approach Torrey Pines State Beach, you experience the most quintessential “California vibes” of driving right next to the coast of the Pacific Ocean. You can walk along the beach to this secluded spot where my family likes to go to jump off of the low rocks when it’s high tide, or you can hike down to it. We opted to hike because the views of Del Mar from the top are pretty awesome.
This is probably my favorite beach spot in California – sometimes it’s busy in the summertime, but more often than not, it’s totally secluded besides a couple other wandering surfers or tourists, and it’s absolutely stunning. The cliffs go on for miles and resemble a pretty, purple-hued painting the further they stretch down the beach.
Ok, I thought, this was it. He knows this was one of my favorite spots, and there’s no one else really here, so it’s perfect. The perfect place for a proposal from my perfect guy. But then I looked at my perfect guy and I realized something.
Tyler has been in his basketball shorts and a t-shirt all day. He enjoys leisure clothing as much as the next guy, but he’s not a purpose-in-baggy-mesh-shorts kind of guy. And the sunset was approaching within the next hour. My heart started racing for a different reason this time.
It wasn’t happening today.
My heart pounded and sank, feeling heavy enough to sink me to the bottom of the ocean beside me if I let it.
And then I did something that seems silly now, but at the time I felt so distraught that I would be returning to Rexburg without a ring on my finger, or the promise of forever with the man of my dreams after letting my hopes rise higher with every mile we put between ourselves and our apartments at school on our way down to California. I cried.
A single, hot tear squeezed it’s way past my eyelid and rolled down my cheek, onto my yellow dress. I turned toward the ocean, hoping the water would be the only one to witness my silly sadness. I really didn’t want him to ask why I was crying, but Tyler always knows when I’m down.
As much as I think he wanted to brush it off, he tried to console me by saying he knew what I was sad about, and we could talk about it over dinner. He asked me where I wanted to go to dinner, and I couldn’t think of anywhere in particular. But, I knew I wanted to watch the sunset with him at Point Loma’s Sunset Cliffs, a place we hadn’t been together yet, and another favorite spot in San Diego of mine where my family goes to eat pizza at the cliffs sometimes.
So Sunset Cliffs it was, and we began our ascent up the sandy trail towards the car. We had to race against time to make it before sunset though, and all of a sudden Tyler was on a mission to make that happen.
An inkling of suspicion grew inside of me – he could have just been making up for the fact that I was bummed out and wanted to guarantee that we made it in time to watch the sun go down at Sunset Cliffs. But what if that wasn’t it? What if he was racing up – faster than normal for a guy who avidly complains about uphill hikes – to make sure there was time to ask me a certain question while it was still light out?
We traded the dirt path for asphalt and the car was in sight. Just as quickly as that thought had come to me, Tyler swung open a porta-potty door at the top of the hike and said, “Don’t wait for me, you can head to the car”.
Yeah, NOPE. That is not it, I thought. He was just racing for the nearest bathroom.
While I waited, my mom texted me, asking if we’d be home for dinner. My heart sank a little further. Any hope I had of him popping the question that day finally fizzled with the text from my mom. Surely he wouldn’t propose without my family there to witness it, he knows how close I am to my mom and my siblings. I sank a little further into the passenger seat of the car, and watched as the sun seemed to mimic me and slip further from the sky.
I replied no, that we were going to Sunset Cliffs, and then we were going to get dinner and head home, and she said “Ok, don’t drive home too late”.
Tyler hopped in the driver’s seat and chased the sunset to Point Loma. We pulled up to my family’s favorite parking spot near Point Loma Nazarene University, where you can get an unobstructed view of the sunset from the cliffs with no people around. I changed into a dress that I needed to take a photo in for a brand campaign, and that’s when Tyler asked if he should change for pictures too. I said sure, and waited outside the car as the sun touched the ocean, beginning its final descent into a pastel Pacific.
Both clad in photo-ready clothing, we started walking down the cliffs toward the ocean. I’d be lying if I said that the thought of a proposal didn’t cross my mind again as we stepped out of the parking lot, but I pushed the thought out to make room to enjoy the moment in front of me, our last day in the Golden State before we traded the sand for a snowy tundra.
Surfers dotted the water that lapped against the cliffside, and their black wetsuits were tiny contrasts against the oranges, pinks, and purples of the cotton candy California sky. There were several hikers dodging in and out of the sandy canyons of the cliffs, but other than the sound of their footsteps in the distance and the rolling waves twenty feet below, it was silent and calm.
I leapt across the divets in the cliffside, camera in hand and searching for the best spot for a photo. Then I saw it.
I squinted harder. About 40 steps away was a blanket sprawled out by the edge of one of the cliffs. I walked toward it, and realized there was Martinelli’s apple cider, roses, and Dove chocolates spread across a tan blanket… my family’s tan blanket! Oh my gosh…
“Whose do you think this is?” Tyler asked coyly, coming up behind me in my favorite button-up shirt of his. All of a sudden I felt nervous, but I played along for half a second. I knew if I turned around and looked at him just then I would start crying. It’s really happening!!
“Should we steal this spot??” he asked. I looked around at my favorite chocolates wrapped in gold foil and my heart started to pound beneath my white dress.
I turned toward him and laughed with him; I felt my whole body smiling, still shocked that he was able to pull this off after prancing around San Diego all day. My sweet boy.
His hands grazed past my arms and settled into my own hands. “Deven…” he started.
Suddenly, I realized that this was one of those rare, once-in-a-lifetime moments. I stared into my boyfriend’s blue eyes and vowed that I would remember every single detail of this moment, because it was never going to happen again! The surfers in the water below us, the sound of the lazy waves lapping the cliffside, the colors of the sunset, the way Tyler looked at me, and the words he was about to say.
The wind whipped strands of hair into my face, and as I reached to disentangle my hair from my lipgloss, I saw movement by one of the canyons. My eyes traveled upward and I recognized my two sisters and my mom hiding behind a bush, giggling like second-grade friends and each of them holding up their phones. My heart sang; my family would get to see me get engaged! I seriously could not be happier. I wanted this moment to stretch on forever.
Tyler grabbed both of my arms and leaned into me for an embrace, “I’m so nervous” he laughed into my ear, his forehead against mine. This was so cute – Tyler was never nervous, he always kept his cool. But here he was, making me the happiest girl in the world and all the while collecting the calm he needed to ask me something.
His fingers grappled in his back pocket, and as soon as he had the ring box in his hand, his knee plunged to the floor. He took both of my hands in his, right after I used them to wipe the tiny tears that had begun to roll down my cheeks.
“Deven Elise Kosciusko, since the day I met you, I knew that you were so special to me…”
I promised myself that I would remember every single word that Tyler said as he was down on his knee, but my head was spinning a million miles a second as I stood there and listened to the sweetest proposal. It happened so fast, but I do remember exactly the way I felt.
After two years of dating, this moment was here. I would be his forever, and in that moment, as I stared down at my sweet, silly, handsome Tyler, that’s all I ever needed.
“…You’re everything I ever wanted when I pictured my future wife. Deven Elise, will you marry me?”
I simultaneously shouted a YES, nodded my head, and leapt into his open arms for one of my favorite Tyler hugs. He whipped around and held me with one hand, releasing the other to give my family a huge “SHE SAID YES!” thumbs up.
I heard three competing cheers from where I had spotted my family earlier, and saw my sisters bouncing up and down and clapping alongside my mom before they ran down the hillside of the cliff to us.
I stayed nested in Tyler’s side as they clutched my newly garnished left hand, asking to see the ring, my mom asking Tyler if he was nervous, and one sister asking if I had seen them before they cheered. All three had shed a tear during the proposal, a happy shake still evident in their voices. It was a whirlwind of movement and chatter on the cliff as the sun finally disappeared behind the blanket of the horizon. We all laughed at the fact that it had been my suggestion to come to Sunset Cliffs, because Tyler didn’t even have to plan for us to come here for the proposal!
I looked around, still awe-struck at this place and my place in life. I had a fiancé!
I glanced over the cliff, and realized that most of the surfers had stopped to watch the proposal unfold once it had started, all of them still perched on their boards looking up at us. I smiled down at them, then turned back towards my family, still in a daze.
We walked back up to the cars, and my mom let us drive her red rental Camaro to the celebratory dinner at Miguels, our favorite Mexican restaurant with the best queso dip on Coronado Island.
The rest of the night, Tyler split his time between trading smiles with me, answering the questions my mom peppered us with about wedding details, and responding to the flood of group texts that had been nonstop from family and friends since he sent out a mass text that let them know he was about to be a married man in a couple of months (the last non-married one of all his friends, so they were all pretty excited for us to join the club haha).
I found out at dinner that Tyler’s rush to the porta-potty was not, in fact, to relieve himself; but to inconspicuously take a call from my dad, who was returning Tyler’s call from the previous night when Tyler had wanted to ask his permission to marry me.
Full of euphoria and queso dip, neither of us wanted to come down from Cloud Nine as we made the drive back to El Centro, and we talked all the way home about wedding food, honeymoon ideas, and our next trip down to California for engagement photos.
We pulled up into my family’s driveway and walked through the door, everyone in bed except my little brother, who couldn’t make it up to San Diego with my mom and sisters. After we showed him the ring, he hugged Tyler and said, “I finally have a brother!”
Tyler and I went our separate ways for the night, he in my old childhood room. I thought about little Deven, and what she would have thought of Tyler Chamberlain as her future husband. She definitely would have had a crush on him and his blue eyes, dark hair, and slight cleft chin, I thought. I gave my past self a little smile and whispered, “He’s perfect”.
…
The next morning, I rolled over to check my phone. A text from Tyler in the next room read,
“Good morning fiancée :)”
And a good morning it was. I woke up for the next 102 days in awe that he would be my husband. 371 days later, and it’s hard to believe that day on the cliff side above that cotton candy sky and half-a-dozen surfers watching us intertwine our futures forever was a year ago.
A beach wedding, an island honeymoon, lots of movie nights, and two big moves later, I look back on that March 4 and remember so clearly the day I said yes to the man who read my favorite book in three days just to surprise me and take me to the movie the book had been made into. To the man who held me in the McDonald’s parking lot while I cried about my parents’ divorce. To the man who stole all of my baking goods and surprised me with a birthday cake he made from scratch. To the man who I will always say yes to for eternity.
