Congrats Big Bro!!!

My big brother, Tony, popped the question last night and to the whole family's surprise, Ashley said yes!!! I could not be any happier for them! Ashley is fabulous and we're all so excited to welcome her into the family!

Hard to believe that the Ruggeri kids are both engaged! How did we get this old?!?

Not to get mushy or anything, but the fact that we're both getting married has made me seriously reminisce about when we were little. For those of you that didn't know us when we were younger, Tony was a terror and I was his (often uninvited) sidekick. Well, let me restate that; I was uninvited unless he needed someone to test out one of his McGyver-esque inventions. I will never forget the day Tony built a zipline over the pool (this, of course, was not out of the ordinary) and I was selected as the crash test dummy. Let's just say that Tony ended up rebuilding the zipline because it didn't quite hold. I, unfortunately didn't make it to the pool. From personal experience, landing on a pad from that high isn't much different than landing on cement!

Although he would never admit it at the time, he took care of me. There was the time that I got my head stuck in the front railing. I was playing hide-and-go-seek with our neighbor. Base was the front porch. I thought I could take a shortcut to base by climbing through the railing. My head was the only part that fit. Benjamin (our neighbor) had a habit of running away when I got myself in these situations because he thought he would get in trouble. I think I was stuck in the railing for a good 20 minutes before Tony got home from school. He nonchalantly walked past me into the house. I thought he would leave me there, but the second he stepped foot in the house I heard, "mom, Katie's stuck in the railing!" Tony saved me again! Also, when I fell in the pool during winter with all of my winter clothes on (and Benjamin froze and didn't know what to do) Tony was the one to yell at him to go get my parents and try to pull me out himself. Yeah, my big bro has been pretty good to me!

And, naturally, all of this happy reminiscing makes me think of the one time I thought I lost him. We were pulling Christmas decorations out of the attic. We LOVED going up in the attic, so we were pros by this point. I was having a conversation with Tony and asked him a question about one of the boxes. He didn't answer. When I turned around, Tony wasn't there. I looked down and Tony was lying in a box on the garage floor, not moving. Of course, in my little kid brain I thought he was dead. I will never forget how I felt as I ran in the house to get my mom. It is making me cry now, just thinking about it. I honestly thought my big brother was gone. Of course he wasn't. He was just unconscious. He had fallen backwards out of the attic. He hit a step on the way down and, by the grace of God, landed in a box of blankets. BLANKETS! Still, to this day, I cannot believe how much God was looking out for us that day!

So, the moral of all the blabbering is that I thank the lord everyday that I was given Tony as my big brother. I look up to him as much today as I did back then. Needless to say, I have very high standards for who should be with my brother and I never could have imagined him finding someone as perfect as Ashley! So, congrats Tony and Ashley! I love you both and I can't wait to build many more happy memories together!