Travis and I are going to be FATHER- AND MOTHER-IN-LAW!!!!

Been anticipating when this would be "official" for a good long while now!
So excited!  So happy!  So thankful Rebekah is marrying a Godly young man who wants to serve the Lord.

So gorgeous!  Caleb has great taste!

They have "officially" known each other for almost 2 years.  Caleb's mom and I actually met years ago when Rebekah was about 5 years old and Caleb about 7, I guess.  We were in a homeschool group together.  I remember meeting this lady that had several cute little boys!  Neither of us were in that group for very long, and I'm sure we both skipped some meetings.  And by the time we were to meet up again, there would be 7 children.  5 boys (4 teens) and 2 girls.  Hehe, made me think of the 5 loaves and 2 fishes.  Wonder if Caleb's little sisters would object to being called fish?  lol.

But on September 3 of 2011, Caleb and Rebekah were at the same church meeting at the same time.  I always say to be where God wants you to be, and you'll meet the right one!  You'll meet a lot of the right people, because those are the ones who are where God wants them to be!
They didn't see each other again until some time the next month, but they were quickly smitten. ;)  They had found out that Caleb's family and my girls and niece (The Hawks Trio) were singing ♪♫ at the same revival on different nights.  So they figured it out for each of our families to come on both nights so they could see each other again.
And it's been that way ever since.  If there is a revival or youth meeting near enough to attend, chances are both of our families, or at least our family and Caleb and some of his brothers, will be at that meeting! 😊


So yesterday...  Caleb and Rebekah are going to be doing the music for the Bible School at Caleb's church, and Rebekah still needed to practice a few of the more tricky songs from Patch the Pirate.  If you know anything about their songs, you'll know you can be humming along and you may go one way and the song will go another!  So Caleb's mom asked that the girls come over to their house to go over those songs again.  Afterwards, several of the boys and girls went walking down the gravel road on the pretense that my girls could meet some friends that lived down that way.  Then they came upon this in the road:

Awww!  The kids always say that finding a penny means, "God loves you." Caleb gave Rebekah the penny and told her, "God loves you..." and knelt down and finished, "...and I love you too!" ♥  He had never actually said the words before.
She put her hand over her mouth, eyes big.  She finally managed, "Is this for real?"
He assured her it was for real!  Then he pulled out the ring.  "Rebekah Anne Hawks, will you marry me?"
He barely got the words out before she answered, "YES!"  Followed by, "Oh, my soul!" and moments later, "It's so beautiful!"  Then she asked, "Are you serious?" still not quite believing this was really happening!  lol.  She totally had not suspected a thing!  😊
This was the first time they told each other "I love you." ♥♥♥  Oh, they had hinted around about it forever, but she was waiting for him to say it first, and knew he wanted to give her a ring first.
They were on Cloud 9, let me tell you!  Still are.  Well, I guess they have been for quite a while already, haha!

One of Caleb's brothers, Ethan, was videoing, and I was able to pull a couple of shots from that:

"Rebekah Anne Hawks, will you marry me?"  (Duh!) heehee

       See the heart♥ in the road? ↑ 😊

"Show me the ring"

►You can watch the proposal here.


Travis and I were just down the road, waiting for the final text from Isaac, another of Caleb's brothers, to tell us it was okay to come on.  We didn't want to arrive too early and make Rebekah wonder why we were there.

back at the house

Then followed pictures, phone calls, excitement from everyone!  The younger kids were especially excited.  The youngest said, "But that's your marriage finger!" and it had to be explained why an engagement ring goes on the marriage finger when you're still not married yet. 😊

And Caleb's little brother Gideon gathered up the ♥ rocks and put them in this container. These are the "love rocks," as he calls them.  So sweet.  =)

Needless to say, facebook has been a flurry of beeps all day from notifications -- of comments to posts I've been tagged in, or have commented on, or have posted myself.

Such excitement!  😄

Apple Festival, October, 2012

after singing at the Wilkes County rest home

See Abi making a ♥ in the background! =)

Rebekah's 18th birthday

at Caleb's house

at Rebekah's house

♥ ♥ ♥

sMiLeS,