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24 FEB 2006
I had been running around all day to make it perfect, making
sure everything was ready and I was being the most anal I have ever been about
anything. Evan (one of my roommates) and I dropped the 12 dozen red roses
off at La Spiaza (the place where Ariel and I met for the first time) and I
left instructions of how I wanted the room to look when we walked (yes, I rented
out the coffee shop). We raced home and I started getting ready for the
rest of the afternoon.
It was 2:30
and she had just walked through my front door. My heart was racing and I
couldn’t shake the feeling like I was going to vomit. I’m sure it had
something to do with my dad, since he called me at 8:30 that morning
asking if I had thrown up yet. I answered no, but from then on, it was
over. I felt sick to my stomach for the rest of the day and my only
prayer was, “don’t throw up, don’t throw up, please God don’t let me throw
up.” For the record, I didn’t throw up, but I did pee a lot.
Anyway, as we left my apartment, the wind hit my face,
relieving some of my nerves, and I finally noticed how amazing she looked. With a gentle smile, she took my arm and we
were on our way to relive our first date, an afternoon at the Botanical Gardens
in Chicago and dinner.
An hour or so later, we arrived at the Gardens. As we wondered through the labyrinth of fields
and grounds, we reflected on our year as a couple, what lead to our
relationship, and what this next year would bring. It was a wonderful
time of reflection; however, our time there was brought abruptly to an
end. All the internal gardens were under construction (an important fact
I did not see on the website). So, we
made our way to Borders for some tea and a chocolate chip cookie. We wondered around a bit, looking at books,
taking about who knows what and just enjoyed the random awkward conversation we
could muster (by this time, I knew she knew something was going to happen
tonight and the awkward silences were just hysterical).
We finally were making our way to this sushi shop that we
had been to before, but the directions I had gotten was for a different restaurant
and we got lost. By the time we got to
the right one, we had discovered that for what ever reason it was closed for
the night and we made our way to Moshi-Moshi in Naperville.
Dinner was filled with awkward silences and random bladder
control problems, but we made our way through it and were off to La
Spiaza.
I took the most random route to the little coffee shop, so
that she wouldn’t know where we were going.
About half way there, I asked her to wrap her scarf around her eyes so
that she wouldn’t see where we were going and we finally got there.
I lead her in and when I told her she could open her eyes,
she was greeted with the 12 dozen roses, her brother with a guitar in his hand
and another guitar waiting for me to play the song I had spent the last 3
months writing. I sat down, played, took
out the ring and bent on one knee asking her to be my wife.
We kissed, made some sort of indication that she was saying
yes and as we embraced, she turned me around and said, “Now, it’s your turn.” I was completely confused, but I sat down and
she pulled out a silver box from her purse. She got on one knee and asked me to
marry her. Completely shocked, I made
some sort of affirmation that I would, we embraced again. But I was not going to let her end the night
with the upper hand. I turned her around
and said, “I have one more surprise for you.” With this, both of our families
came out from the back of the coffee shop and we spent the rest of the night
celebrating the next chapters of our lives.
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