Reba McEntire is “having a blast” as a bride-to-be!

Nearly two months after news broke that she’s engaged to Rex Linn after five years of dating, the country star, 70, says she “feels like a teenager again.”

“I’m having a blast,” she told USA Today in a recent interview. “It’s just a wonderful time.”

PEOPLE confirmed that the couple had gotten engaged after an E! News reporter referred to them as fiancés on the 2025 Emmy Awards red carpet on Sept. 14.

McEntire also told USA Today that she can’t stop admiring her engagement ring, which features rose gold and black diamonds. “It sparkles all the time, and it doesn’t matter that I don’t think I’ve ever cleaned it,” she said, sharing that Linn, 68, presented it to her on bended knee while the two were taking a walk on their Tennessee ranch on Christmas Eve last year.

The Reba alum revealed that Linn originally had a far different plan for popping the question. After picking out the ring at an Austin, Texas, jeweler, he secretly carried it in his pocket during an African safari in June 2024.

“But the opportunity never presented itself,” McEntire said. “He brought [the ring] back home.”

When he finally proposed by their favorite creek on their ranch, the musician’s initial reaction was, “What are you doing?”

“He said, ‘Would you marry me? I want to cross the finish line with you,’ ” McEntire recalled, noting that she hugged him but didn’t answer immediately.

“He said, ‘You’re not saying anything!’ And I finally said, ‘Well, yes! YES!’ He thought he was going to have to jump into the creek,” the three-time Grammy winner told USA Today.

Linn chimed in, “I thought, if she doesn’t say ‘yes,’ I’ll just disappear into that creek. But then she said ‘yes’ three times.”

Now, McEntire says she’s “happier now than I’ve ever been in my life.”

“I’m 70 years old, 50 years in the business. God saved the best for last,” the “I’m a Survivor” singer told USA Today.

McEntire previously told PEOPLE exclusively that the couple chose to keep their Christmas engagement a secret due to the wildfires that devastated the Los Angeles area in January 2025.

“We were going to make the announcement when we got back to L.A. in January, and the fires happened. It wasn’t appropriate,” she said, adding that “the time never presented itself until the Emmys when it just happened.”

As for their wedding plans, McEntire told PEOPLE she and Linn are in no rush to the altar.

“I asked him, ‘Well, when do you want to do this?’ He said, ‘Let’s have fun with the engagement time.’ So we haven’t set a date or anything. We’re just enjoying each other,” she shared.

Reflecting on her relationship with Linn, McEntire told PEOPLE, “I’ve never been loved by a man like Rex Linn. Rex is a very tender-hearted man, and I just love him with all my heart. He’s a good guy. Real bashful though.”

McEntire and Linn — who first met in 1991 on the set of the TV movie The Gambler Returns and reconnected in 2020 — are partners both in life and on the small screen. They costar on the NBC comedy Happy’s Place, she as tavern co-owner Bobbie and he as the establishment’s short-order cook Emmett.

The Voice coach and Linn commute to the set together from their Los Angeles home, and rehearse their scenes late into the night, she told USA Today.

“We’re great rehearsal partners. We’ll go to bed with our scripts and wake with them,” McEntire said. “But many mornings we sit out back and watch the hummingbirds while having coffee.”

The pair have a daily morning ritual, affectionately called Coffee Camp, that they maintain even when apart, thanks to Zoom calls.

“In the morning, when I’m shuffling down the hall to get Coffee Camp, Rex will say, ‘You’re the prettiest woman in the world,’ ” McEntire shared. “And I’ll say, ‘Okay, put your glasses back on.’ “