How it all happened

Dan and I met on the internet.

It wasn't a dating site or anything like that, but a mutual-interest site about backpacking in Europe. I planned a trip for the summer after I graduated college, and when I came back I started planning another trip, so I stayed on the message boards there. Dan's brother, meanwhile, was also a regular on the site, and when Dan started to plan a trip to Europe, his brother told him to join up. I read his posts for a few months, and once I IM'd him out of the blue. We started IMing every few days, and then every day, and then hours every day. Eventually I got up the courage to give him my phone number, and that night we spoke on the phone for seven hours straight. He took a trip for a family event to California about a month later, and I met him at the airport - he spent the whole weekend, aside from the one event, with me.

Our relationship was long-distance flights every month, talking on the phone twice a week, and IMing every day for a year and a half. I moved to Colorado in January of 2003 and six months later he moved in with me. We spent a few years living blissfully in sin with our cats, and eventually started talking about maybe making this a permanent thing, maybe, someday. The serious discussions started early in 2006, but everything was still hypothetical, and we went into some stores and I tried on some rings so Dan could see what I liked (not yellow gold, not diamonds) and what looked good on my finger. We talked a lot about engagement and marriage in 2006, but that fall my sister got engaged, and (as I found out later) Dan postponed his plans of proposing at Thanksgiving because he didn't want to take any attention away from my sister and her fiance. At Christmas we found out that our close friends had gotten engaged and were planning a wedding for September of this year, and also found out his brother's upcoming foreign service assignment to a place from which it would be both difficult and expensive to return to the US after he leaves in June of 2008.

In January of this year, we were visiting my family in California shortly after New Year's and my mom took us to a gem show. We saw some beautiful stones and I got excited about the prospect of a ring, but knew it was something Dan wanted to surprise me with so I knew not to expect anything. The week of Valentine's Day, I came home from work to find a box with a suspicious return address on the back porch. I didn't investigate too closely, not wanting to ruin any surprise that I knew he wanted to do. So when he got home from school that night I told him "there's a box on your dresser" and he said "Oh really?" and then he disappeared into the bedroom for a while and came back out with a big smile on his face.

So I was a little suspicious. We had decided a few weeks before to go out to dinner on February 15 (Valentine's day is for amateurs; he's been a server for a long time and knows how tough VDay can be for a restaurant, and it's a lot easier to get a reservation and good service the day after). So I decided to surprise him on Valentine's Day, and I made him a really nice dinner and dessert that we ate when he got home from class that night. After dessert he said "Do you want your present now?" and I said "I thought you were giving it to me tomorrow." He said "You might want it for tomorrow," and went into the bedroom and came out with a pretty box. Inside were peridot earrings and a pendant and I squeed a little. So pretty! And obviously, that's what must have been in the mysterious box.

So I totally was not expecting anything but a nice dinner the next night, and he surprised me by taking me to a REALLY nice restaurant. We had wine and dinner and he insisted on ordering dessert. In between dinner and dessert, he took the silver claddagh ring I've been wearing for 5 years (on my right hand of course) and did a magic trick with it (he's been doing slight-of-hand type tricks since he was a kid, but usually with cards and coins). Anyhow, this was a trick with a napkin, and as he told me the story of unscrupulous fortune tellers during the renaissance era, he took my silver ring and turned it into a white gold claddagh with a sapphire stone and asked me to marry him! WHEEEEE!!! I was totally shocked and didn't even realize what was happening until he opened the napkin with the pretty new ring. It was totally HIM to propose that way, and I was thrilled, and surprised, and I keep looking and my hand and doing little happy dances.

Six months later, I still squee a little when I look at my ring. It's very meaningful to us and our relationship, a little untraditional, and I wouldn't have it any other way.