re-posting alerts not working! this is too happy not to share~

My husband's brother called him very, very excited today.

The following article was in todays Rockford Illinois local paper.  Erin is my neice.  There are pictures but they are under copyright, so I couldn't lift them----

This is just so darn cool!

 

Local News: Rockford
Mission accomplished on the home front

By CHRIS GREEN, Rockford Register Star

OAS_AD('300x250_1');  ROCKFORD — U.S. Army soldier Trevor Schultz returned home Tuesday on a two-week leave from his deployment in Iraq.

But the 20-year-old Belvidere resident wasn’t exactly home for R and R.

Tuesday night, he embarked on the most important mission in his young life. In front of family and friends at the Old Chicago restaurant on East State Street, Schultz, decked in Army fatigues, dropped on bended knee and proposed to his high school sweetheart.

His unannounced visit, let alone the rock he slipped on his girlfriend Erin Gossett’s finger, was a total surprise to the 20-year-old who leapt into his arms and wrapped him in a bear hug.

Gossett, who also wore matching military pants, insisted she had no idea a proposal was forthcoming. “He’s been telling me for months that he had a present for me,” she said. “I just wanted him home.”

Gossett was invited to Old Chicago, her favorite restaurant, by Schultz’s parents, Chris and Rick Tenhagen, to celebrate her birthday. Gossett, who turns 21 Sunday, said she wore the fatigues only as a way of remembering Trevor since he would not be there to celebrate her birthday with her. Or so she thought.

Schultz, an infantry soldier with the 101st Airborne unit, is a 2004 graduate of Belvidere High School. He enlisted in the Army in June 2004, went to boot camp in Fort Benning, Ga., and is stationed in Fort Campbell, Ky.

Gossett, 20, of Byron also is a 2004 graduate of Belvidere High School, where the couple first met. Gossett was recently hired as an assistant manager at the new Riverside Boulevard Wal-Mart store.

“He’s been planning this since September,” Trevor’s mother said of the proposal. “He bought the ring in November, but he just told me about a month ago that he was coming home.”

Gossett’s mother, Lynn, who was also on hand, said, “I just found out today. I could barely keep it in inside.”

Schultz’s 14-day leave of absence officially began at 12:01 a.m. today, and his mission is far from complete. The couple plan to marry Monday at the Boone County Courthouse.

Chris and Rick Tenhagen are offering a honeymoon in Jamaica when Schultz returns from Iraq in September.