How we met

Steve and I met on October 27th, 2007, 4 days before my birthday. We met at a mutual friend's Halloween party and he was the first person I laid eyes on when I walked into the room. Probably because he wasn't wearing a costume! One of my friends and I played beer pong against him and one of his friends, and of course we lost. As the night wore on and more people arrived, we didn't really see much of each other because we were mingling and talking with people we knew. At one point I spotted him and recognized him because of our earlier beer pong game. We began chatting and eventually exchanged numbers. We ended up talking with each other for the rest of the night until it was time to go home. I really didn't expect to hear from him again after we parted ways, but a few days later he called and asked me out on a date. The rest is history! We endured a year-long separation when Steve was serving in Iraq. This also happened to be during our daughter's first year of life. We knew if we could get through that we could get through anything together.

The Proposal

We had planned a date night for November 12th, 2010. Steve had asked me to pick a romantic restaurant because he wanted to "make the night special", as he put it. At that point I kind of knew that something was up because he normally wouldn't suggest a romantic place, but I didn't want to get my hopes up. Before dinner we went to a movie that I picked, Morning Glory. After the movie we went to the very romantic Melting Pot for a fabulous and leisurely dinner. After our delicious meal (the chocolate fondue dessert was my favorite part!) we headed back to his apartment. He opened the door for me and let me walk in first. I was greeted to about 50 different candles lit up (in glass jars) all over his apartment; on the tables, on the floor, going up the stairs, etc. along with red and pink rose petals scattered literally everywhere. First I yelled at him for having all of those candles lit up for so many hours unattended! I mean, thats a huge fire hazard! He told me to relax and have a seat on the couch. He poured us a couple of glasses of wine and I knew what was coming. I had butterflies in my tummy and I was so nervous and excited at the same time! This was a moment I had envisioned my whole life, and I couldn't believe it was actually happening. As we sat on the couch sipping our wine, he began telling me that when he thought about his future he thought about having different jobs, living in different places, having different numbers of children, but the one thing that always remained constant was me. He told me that he always saw me as a part of his future and he wanted us to be together forever. Then he pulled out a small red box and presented me with the most beautiful ring I had ever seen and asked me to marry him! After he placed the ring on my finger all I could do was say "Oh my gosh! Really?!" over and over again until he said "uhh...is that a yes?" I of course said YES! but then quickly realized that in his nervousness he had forgotten to get down on one knee. So I made him get down on one knee and do it again. :) I couldn't stop staring at my ring and for the rest of the night I was walking around in a happy haze. Until I accidentally knocked over one of the candles that was on the floor. Thankfully it was after we had blown them all out, but blue candle wax spilled all over the floor and his nice white couch. We did discover though, on the night we became engaged no less, that candle wax comes out of fabric with a piece of paper and an iron. :)