The Engagement

By now most of you should know that I got my Christmas wish. After almost seven years of dating Dave, he finally asked me to marry him. And it was perfect.

Dave had asked me a for a while to go to dinner with him in Ann Arbor once I was back from my trip with my parents to Hawaii for our first of the month celebration. I figured something may be up but then when we were in Hawaii my parents gave me the talk about why Dave and I weren't married, and when we would get married. I figured that meant Dave didn't ask them, which meant that I wasn't getting engaged. But Dave was smarter than that. He knew if he asked me parents before our trip they would give away the surprise.

So we got back on Sunday and Dave apparently tried to call my sister to get me out of the house so he could talk to my parents before we went to dinner. However, my sister was asleep since we didn't' get as much sleep as we should have on the plane and didn't answer his numerous calls. Finally, Dave gave up on calling and just came over to my house unannounced an hour early. Of course I wasn't ready to go yet (I thought I had an hour to get dressed). While I was getting ready he tried to talk to my dad. However, my dad was asleep, but Dave woke him up and asked for his permission to marry me while I was getting ready (he only had about 10 minutes as I was trying to be fast). My dad, still waking up, mumbled something like "that would be nice", and then called my mom who was out shopping. My mom came home and almost ruined the surprise. When my dad told her to come home right away because Dave was over she knew what was up and bought a cake to celebrate, not realizing Dave hadn't asked me yet. My dad stashed the cake in the laundry room and my parents sent us on our way to Ann Arbor.

The whole car ride to Ann Arbor Dave talked about waiting till he was 30 to get married and how we couldn't get married because what would we do with our kitchen items (with logic like that how could one argue)? So I'm sitting in the car trying not to be disappointed because I thought my proposal would never come.

We go to dinner at the Earle, one of our favorite restaurant. The meal was perfect. Dave got the duck, which tasted awesome, and I got the whitefish, which was good (but not as good as the duck). We split a bottle of wine and had a great time! Dave was really adamant about going for a walk on the diag even though it was freezing outside. I figured since it was so important to him I would go, especially since we had no idea when we would be back on campus again.

We drove by the diag, parked and walked to the center (not a short walk in the cold). As we stood close to the "M" Dave asked me how long we had been dating (a tradition on the first of the month). I said we had been dating 80 months, and he asked what percentage of a lifetime that was. After I said a little less than 10% Dave said "I want to spend the rest with you", got down on his knee and asked me to marry him. It was a perfect evening, and I could not have asked for a better Christmas.

We think our wedding will be August 2008, which means a lot of planning in a short time. Plus I know have motivation to lose the additional weight I have gained from mono and more to get to my goal before August. It is really exciting to have things fall into place, and I can't even convey how happy I am to have the perfect Christmas this year :-)