Thanksgiving Weekend 10 Years Ago

I was thinking the other day that it has been ten years this weekend since C.O. asked me to be his wife. I had been teaching here in Brevig Mission for a few months and missed him terribly from the moment I said good-bye at the Minneapolis airport. I was completely excited to have him come for a visit over the Thanksgiving holiday. C.O. was scheduled to arrive in Brevig on the Friday before Thanksgiving. That would give us a week and half together before he had to return to Minnesota.

Unfortunately, an on time arrival was not meant to be that weekend. Due to stormy weather, the planes were unable to fly on Friday . . . or Saturday . . . or Sunday . . . or Monday! Instead of being together those four days, C.O. spent days and days in the Bering Air lobby waiting for hourly weather updates while I called him crying every two hours or so.

C.O. finally arrived Tuesday in the middle of the day, during my 3rd and 4th grade math class to be exact. Seeing him at my classroom window and popping my head out to say "hi" wasn't quite the dramatic and emotional reunion I was hoping for but I was awfully glad to see his face none the less.

After school ended we went for a walk down on the beach. It was there that C.O. popped the question and presented me with the ring he had made for me. It was bitter cold and windy; we didn't linger.

Here we are, ten years later, still in Brevig Mission, living on the beach of the Bering Sea just a few hundred yards from where C.O. proposed. I never could have guessed it would be so.

~AnnMarie