The day I accepted the proposal of the man I love will always stand out in my memory. August 18, 2006, a beautiful day in the San Francisco Bay Area. We had been dating (and known each other) for a little over 8 months at the time.
I woke up next to the man of my dreams, and he suggested that we go out and have an adventure, a semi-tradition we did together, usually on the spur of the moment. I agreed, of course, and we suited up in our motorcycle gear, hopped on the back of his bike, and rode out into the world. However, he said we had to make a quick stop before we truly got started on our adventure. We stopped at a local dollar store, where he purchased a little plastic pail and shovel, smiley face erasers, a small plastic pony (his ideas), and a pretty tiara (at my request). With our new supplies, we rode on his motorcycle across the Bay Bridge, to the lovely (if chilly) Pier 39, and we found ourselves a bit of beach to sit on and make sandcastles.
All seemed right in the world to me, as I sat in the sunlight building a sandcastle with my love, wearing the little tiara he had purchased for me. I thought nothing of it when he started telling me a story about a princess in a castle (using one of the pink smiley face erasers stuck in the sand as an example princess.) I laughed with delight, because of my love for fairy tales and his knowledge of my love for them, and I listened eagerly. The story told of a knight in shining armor (a blue smiley face eraser) who rode on valiant steed (a small plastic pony) to join the princess in her tower, so that they could keep each other company and go on adventures together." And how did this brave knight find the tower of the princess?" I asked. "By way of a beacon that had been set atop the tower," my love replied, and then he withdrew the beacon from his pocket and added it to the castle of sand: a beautiful engagement ring.
At that point I looked at the ring, looked at my love, looked back at the ring, and then back to my love with tears of joy in my eyes. I threw myself into his arms and kissed him, and he held me and kissed me back. When we had finished our embrace, he slipped the ring on my finger. Then I looked at my love, and said, "Wait! You still haven't asked me!" He laughed, kissed me, then got down on one knee and asked me to be his wife.
I, of course, said yes!
After the proposal, and before we began sharing the news, we stopped at In'n'Out for some yummy treats to celebrate our engagement, just the two of us! It was a wonderful adventure, and now my head was filled with dreams of the day when I would be taking my love's name as my own.
Was your proposal like something out of a fairy tale?
