Best. Surprise. Ever.

 

The past week and a half has been c.r.a.z.y.  Crazy.  Crazy good.  On Monday, May 13th, 2013 this guy proposed to me in one of the most creative and thoughtful ways known to man :)  And I said "Yes" in the most incoherent way possible, between shock and happy tears.

The History

To really do this story justice, let me back up to the summer of 2011.  I had just graduated grad school and ended my 9 year career as a student.  I had more time than I knew what to do with and figured I better start to fill it with new hobbies and activities I hadn't had the time to do since high school.  Most of my life had been dedicated to school for a decade, but not anymore.  The first thing I decided to do, for some crazy reason, was join a softball team.  Let me just say, I am THE most uncoordinated person there is.  I don't do sports.  I do solo exercise where no one is counting on me to accurately throw a ball or outrun another human being.  But, a good friend (Nicole) and a friend I was just getting to know (Tina), invited me to play and I said, "What the heck...I'll try it!"

It was perfect, too, because the team was formed by an architecture firm that Tina worked for so I figured, if anything else, I would be hanging out with other people in my field, networking over beers and baseball, and meeting new friends.

Where it all started...

Well, I was right, I did meet new friends.  One of which was Denny, and oddly enough he was the only non-architecture person on the team (thank God...I don't think I could date someone in the same field as me).  But he was really good at softball and he happened to know a lot of the kids on the team, so he played.  I would come to find out that he is good at ALL sports, softball was the tip of the iceberg.  Anyway, we played the whole season together, never really hanging out until a couple of months after the season ended - I invited him to my birthday.  The next weekend we went to a concert together for Halloween, and the rest is history!

All uphill from here.

It has been a whirlwind of a year and a half with him, and I can safely say there is never a dull moment.  Many-a-time during our time together, I have been outside of my comfort zone.  But that's what I like - the challenge and excitement.

The Proposal

Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago when Denny was spending a LOT of time helping our friend Nick build skis at his shop (Fortitude).  He started to spend nights and even a couple of weekend days helping him and I was getting curious.   When May 13th came around, we went to an unusually crowded happy hour (at least for a Monday night), at the Ale House, which has an amazing view of the city.  Upon arrival, I noticed about 20 of our friends there...some of which we hadn't seen in months.  Sure I was curious, but it was quickly explained to me that a friend's brother, whom everyone knew, was in town for one night only (which was true).  About half way through the night, Nick told me that he made Denny a custom snowboard as a "thank you" for all of his help over the last 2 weeks and that he was going to present it to him that night.  When the board came out, Denny thanked Nick but explained that the board was really for me.  He then flipped over the board and it said "Marry me?" on the other side.  I was floored and obviously said "yes".  How could I not!?  It turns out that Denny had been building me this snowboard, from scratch (!), with Nick's help.  One word: Impressive.

A word to the wise - try something you wouldn't normally try, do things for the sake of trying something new and meeting new people because you never know what will come out of it!  Needless to say, this guy makes my day, my month and my year.  I love you, Denny!

(More boring stuff, like recipes, to come soon.  This deserved its own post.)