I’m not a great improv storyteller. “Not great” is generous. I most often miss important details, elaborate excessively on immaterial particulars, and obnoxiously jumble the order of events. Fortunately for all, I’m better able to recount my tales in writing. Someday, our kid(s) are going to wonder about our story, about how all they know came to be. I want to incorporate my favorite parts of our story into this blog before the years fade my memory so that when the time comes to share them with our children, I can do it right.
The story of our engagement is one of my favorites. I still pinch myself when I realize it’s ours. Rob didn’t just knock it out of the park, he cleared the stadium’s nosebleed seats. I’ll just spoil the ending from the get-go so I can order the events properly…I said yes.
Rob and I hopped on a plane on New Year’s Eve, waved goodbye to 2014 and said a gleeful ALOHA to 2015, Maui and my family. After a tonsillectomy a few weeks prior, my last day at my job the day before, and Rob’s first experience with a Barba style pre-vacation packing/cleaning all-nighter, we needed a stress-free week in paradise.
We strolled along Front Street in Lahaina the day after we arrived. Rob invited my sister to get gelato while I shoe shopped with my mom and unbeknownst to me, enlisted her help as his proposal photographer. A few days later, he convinced me to go get a manicure with my sister and while we got pampered, he walked the beach outside our hotel with my mom and asked her blessing.
On January 5th, we dressed up for dinner. Rob had made a reservation for the two of us just down the beach from Whaler’s Village. He suggested we walk to the restaurant in the sand. He held my hand and began saying wonderfully romantic and poetic things to me. Still oblivious and true to character, I dropped his hand to pull up my phone camera. The setting sun lit the water and the sky. It was quite literally picture-perfect. As calm and confident as ever, he continued. He said my full name, pulled a sparkly ring from his pocket, knelt and asked me to marry him.
My phone and the bag I held fell into the damp sand as my hands cupped my mouth and I jumped backward. My knees violently trembled. That whole weak in the knees nonsense…that actually happened. “Are you serious?” I asked. He smiled and said yes. And so did I, many times.
We hugged and kissed and the sun set behind us. Rob smiled again and pointed over to the bushes. My mom and sister stood up.
What a guy, right? I’ll say yes to this crazy life with Rob for the rest of forever. ❤ There are several details worth noting that don’t really fit with the flow of the story, but prove just how brilliant Rob is. Hope you enjoy them as much as I do 😊:
- Rob changed our dinner reservation from the 6th to the 5th because he watched the weather and winds were supposed to pick up on the 6th.
- Rob had told his parents he was going to propose before we left home, so they already knew the plan when they drove us to the airport and we all joked about the escapades the night before, when I’d bitched at Rob because his help in cleaning our apartment was not up to my standards.
- Just before Rob proposed, I suggested we go say hi to my mom and sister as we walked by the bar where they were at happy hour. Rob shot that idea down. Hard. I thought it was weird and told him so of course, but didn’t press it…thankfully. I would try to start a fight minutes before my boyfriend was planning to propose. Haha. Turns out, my sister had texted Rob and told him not to come because my mom was crying.
- Convincing me to get a manicure is a feat most would underestimate. I can be, ehem, frugal. Why would I pay for a manicure? It’s just going to chip.
- Rob consoled my mom after he asked her blessing and graciously suggested she pull it together before my sister and I returned from our nail appointment. She was, you guessed it, crying.
- Rob proposed on the beach at sunset because he timed it that way. I threw a wrench in his calculated timing a little earlier that evening when I said, “I’m ready now, let’s go.” He gracefully lead us through the shops in Whaler’s Village to kill the time. We even bought cards for friends.
- Rob mentioned a month or so before we left for Hawaii that he’d probably propose that next summer. “You can’t be a bridesmaid and plan a wedding at the same time,” he’d said, “it would be too stressful.” He planted that seed to ensure my ignorance. It worked.
