I Will

As previously stated I’m a tenacious guy, I am also a bit of a romantic. Lisa and I had been dating a little over three months and we knew we wanted to get married. I know what you’re thinking (I’m thinking it too), “Man, three months, that’s quick!” In our defense, that’s not too uncommon around these parts. Also, in case any of my children think that three months is ok for them as well, they best keep thinking, probably for an additional nine to ten months. I wanted to make sure that Lisa got a ring she liked, so we visited a few of the local jewelers. We finally settled on a custom ring that was going to take about a week to make. During that time I thought long and hard about how I wanted to propose.

I always wanted my proposal to come as a surprise to my future wife. It’s kind of hard to surprise someone with something they helped pick out so I figured the best way to make it a surprise was to make the night appear ordinary. I got the ring midway through the second to last week of July and thought I should wait till the next week to actually propose. I figured a weeknight would be less conspicuous than a weekend. I’m not quite sure how Lisa found out that I had the ring but she was on alert that weekend, and I think kind of disappointed when it didn’t happen. The actual day was to be the coming Wednesday. The day of, wanting this to appear as a spur of the moment decision, I asked if she wanted to go to go out for dinner after work . I think that got her thinking that I was going to propose so when I went to go pick her up, she had her roommate snap this picture of us.

Ahh the days before digital cameras.


Lisa, the eternal prankster.

After we got in the car and she asked where we were going I suggested we should go to China Town in Provo, my friend worked there so we went there quite a bit. Unfortunately my friend wasn’t working there that night but we did have a delightful dinner with our usual Po Po Tray and the Tiny Spicy Chicken. After dinner we got our fortune cookies, serendipitously we both had the EXACT same fortunes. I figured it was a sign. When we got back into the car, I asked her what she wanted to do next, trying to throw the scent off. She said she didn’t have any preference, so I made a few suggestions, one of which was a nice scenic drive up the canyon. She said she didn’t care so I decided we should go up the canyon. We didn’t have any jackets or anything so we stopped off at our respective apartments to pick them up and headed up. On our way up I suggested we should go to Cascade Springs, again a place we’d been to quite a bit. She said that was fine but thought it might be closed because it was getting late. I promised her it would be fine so we kept going.

When we finally got there it was pretty late, I suggested we get out and take a stroll down by the springs. She didn’t want to go but I said I had a flashlight just in case, and that the moon was out and we probably wouldn’t even need it. She grudgingly agreed so we got out and I handed her the flashlight as I got our coats from out of the car. For those of you not familiar with Cascade Springs it is a park that is built on a series of springs and waterfalls with bridges and wooden paths. The parking lot to the springs is above the springs themselves and there is a wooden gazebo at the beginning of a paved path leading to the springs from the parking lot. As we entered the gazebo Lisa sais she thought she saw something in the center of it and flashed the light on it, there was a vase with one white rose (Lisa’s favorite) in it. She kind of stopped, slightly confused and I suggested we pick it up. I told her I thought we should follow the path down to the springs and as we did there was a rose every five to ten feet down the path. By this time I think she had caught on that this wasn’t an ordinary night. The trail led us across the wooden paths and up towards the far bank of one of the waterfalls, the path then curved towards the waterfall. We followed the roses till it led us to a bridge that crossed a waterfall. The bridge had white balloons tied on all four corners, in the center of the bridge was a small piece of white cloth with hurricane candle holder holding a huge white candle in it. There were rose petals sprinkled around the base of the hurricane and on the cloth along with a rolled up piece of paper, and a small box. I picked up both the paper and the box and read her the poem I wrote to her. I dropped to one knee and asked her to be my wife. She smiled and said yes, she kissed me and music started playing from the bushes near the entrance of the bridge. It was our song “I Will” by the Beatles (I had a remote control for the CD player in the bushes in my pocket). We went to the bushes and I pulled out the CD player, a cooler that had two goblets of her favorite ice cream, Chocolate Midnight Madness, along with two spoons, and a blanket. I laid out the blanket on the landing right before the bridge and we sat down and enjoyed the rest of the evening. It took awhile to plan this out and was only able to do so with the help of my cousin Sam, so for the 100^th time, thanks for your help that night Sam!

The last Wednesday of July this year we celebrated that night (thanks for watching the kids Laura!) Here we are leaving for our date.

Look how excited we are!

Since I ended up having to do another post last time just for the gift I gave Lisa to mark the occasion I thought I should just talk about it here. Before we got to the restaurant I surprised Lisa with these diamond earrings.

Apparently China Town is under new management. We asked to sit in the same booth we sat in that night. The food was still good but not the same.

When did the Po Po Tray start coming with Chicken Nuggets?

Alas, we didn't get the same fortune this time but we'd like to think they both came true.

As prepared as I thought I was for this evening I forgot to bring a flashlight! Unfortunately it was cloudy and there was no moon that night so we figured we should just take a photo at the top of the trail instead of trying to make it down there in the dark.

That night was easily one of the best nights of my life. Everyday since has been an amazing gift.