An Engagement Story

The story: Friday, December 18th was Dashing's 25 birthday. We always do 3 birthday events - dinner with immediate family, a friends' day/night, and a couple's dinner. As you can imagine, we more or less do birthday weekends. Dashing had a Med School exam during the day on Friday, and when he finished he gave me a call to say he had made dinner reservations at the Compass Room at our downtown Phoenix Hyatt, a rooftop rotating restaurant. I wasn't surprised by the restaurant choice as we had my couple's dinner there this year too. I was surprised by one thing though....he actually made reservations and evening plans? I was impressed as he usually has me call to make reservations. We drove downtown and stopped at the Sheraton's District Bar for a quick pre-dinner birthday drink. Then on to dinner....we talked, ate, celebrated his birthday. We seamlessly got into a conversation about how our past experiences, good and bad, make us who we are today and how that has made us stronger together. He then said, these past 3 1/2 years have been the best of my life. Just then the rotating restaurant viewed our loft, his school, my work, our car (he planned this too!).....he got down on his knee and asked "Will you marry me?" and opened up the ring box.

I have no doubt that I looked like a deer in headlights. From recent conversations, I was sort of expecting something in early spring....but definitely not on his birthday. He later said he wanted to do it on his birthday for that exact reason - to make it a genuine surprise. He said it's the best birthday gift he could have.

So after all of this, the waitress came back with champagne and congratulated us. We left the restaurant hand in hand and called his and my parents. Unbeknownst to me, he had asked my dad for my hand in marriage 2 weeks ago when my dad was in town visiting AZ, and his parents have known for the last month. AND Apparently, the ring was delivered to his parent's house on Thursday while I was standing in the entry way. Dashing's dad signed for a package and mentioned it was medical records. I was clueless! We then met up with his parents for a champagne toast at the OBar at the Ocean Club.

I am loving being engaged to the man of my dreams, and I have to admit I catch myself just frequently admiring my ring. We do not have a date set, and don't plan to until Dashing gets his medical school schedule for the upcoming year. He is so excited for all of this AND he (yes, I said HE) is pumped to be involved in the decisions on everything from location to color palate - amazing! He definitely got his mom's (Glenda's) interior designer genes!

Lots of new and exciting adventures to come!