The ring

Monday morning on the 23rd, Tosha flew to Oklahoma City to spend 10 days with Austen Russell.  He is in the Air Force and stationed at Tinker Air Force base.  Tosha had met him in July during his leave in Utah and it didn't take them long to figure out that they really liked each other.

Tosha actually met Austen's dad and his step mom at Cracker Barrel where she was working as a waitress.  His dad is a bit of a tease and they enjoyed bantering with each other while they were eating dinner.  At one point, Tom commented that her boyfriend was very lucky to have such a fun girl friend.  She said she didn't have a boyfriend.  Tom then asked her if she wanted to meet his "cute" son in the Air Force.  She said that she didn't usually share information with customers but that their son could look her up on Facebook.  She forgot about it until the next day she got a friend request from Austen saying that his dad had told him about her and how cute she was.  It started with Facebook messages and then texting and then when he came to Utah for his leave they met and started dating.  He was only in town for a few weeks and then headed back to Oklahoma.  Since then they have talked, texted and FaceTimed constantly and fell in love.

Austen asked for Tosha's "hand" over FaceTime the day before she left for her visit there with Gary and I.  I have spent time getting to know him over FaceTime too as well as Jena, but we have only met him in person once in July.  He is a fun guy and I feel peaceful about the whole thing.

He actually proposed on Thursday and Tosha announced it to us by sending a picture of her hand with her darling engagement ring. 

It came with a short text:  He proposed!
So we had to exchanged texts to see if she said, "Yes"
which of course she did.

It was nice to have something positive to focus on in the middle of all that was going on with the funeral and taking care of Allan and everything else that needed to be done.

We have spent time with Austen on Facetime over the past weeks and it was nice to have some great conversations with this great guy who had won Tosha's heart.

The original plan was to have the wedding in December but a date was never quite set.  That should have been a clue to me to get ready, but I was busy with other things at the moment........