It didn't take me long to realize that Christie
was the one I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. I
truly new it when we took our first vacation together to St. John's,
USVI. Where else was I going to find someone who was willing
to camp on a Caribbean Island, use community showers with only cold
water, and Hike 2 hours across the Island to catch the Penn
State/North Carolina Basketball game...and damn she's HOT too !!
The subject came up every once in a while and for
fun we would visit jewelry stores to pick out the perfect ring. I
didn't actively start searching until September 2001. I think
partly because she still had a year of school left and quit frankly
the idea scared the hell out of me! Andy Stine one of my co-workers
and fellow classmate had just started working for us and he was in
the process of searching for a ring himself. I guess all the
talk pushed me over the edge and I figured it was about that
time. So I enlisted the help of my mom and two sister's to
find that perfect ring.
Luckily my younger brother's soccer season was
going on at the time. This gave me the excuse I needed to
venture up to Harrisburg to do some browsing. She didn't have a
clue...in fact she often got upset with me because I was spending at
least one night a week up in Harrisburg...little did she know.
The hard part came when I finally found the ring.
Talking to her parents...I mean I knew they loved me, heck what's
not to love !! but this was there baby girl !! Luckily we were
storing our boat at their house and it was time to have it
winterized. So I used this excuse to pay them a visit. When I
told them I wanted to talk to the both of them a look of terror went
through their faces. The entire ride up to their house I was
anticipating the worst. My thoughts immediately went to all the
questions I thought they were going to ask and how was I going to
respond. Well I finally got up the nerve and blurted it out and
thankfully it was a simple yes ! In, fact they seemed to be
quite elated...not that I wasn't expecting that or anything this is
after all me we are talking about!
So with 2 of the 3 tasks down I had to come up
with a way to propose to her in a romantic and surprising way.
My original thought was to propose to her during the sunset at the
Outer Banks. This Idea was going to be difficult at best, so I
decided to do it at Federal Hill during sunset. You are
probably seeing a theme here, but I'll explain it anyway.
Sunsets are one of Christie's favorite things in the whole world, so
I figured what could be better than doing it then. The hard part was
getting her there without causing suspicion. When I told her
that it had been a while since we had a romantic evening out...she
laughed at me !! Luckily I made her feel extremely guilty and she
accepted my invitation.
On Friday October 26, I put the ring in my pocket
and headed over to pick her up. I had picked up the ring several
days earlier from my parents. She thought I was working
late...little did she know I was having dinner with my
parents. Anyway we made it to Federal Hill just in time for
the sunset. My biggest fear on the way over was that there was going
to be a crowd of people. Luckily when we arrived there was
only a TV crew...yes that's right of all nights to film a segment
from the Hill they choose that night...boy was I excited.
We took a seat on a bench looking west and watched
the sun set over the city. At this point the adrenaline was
rushing and I couldn't stop fidgeting. I started to say a few corny
things (omitted because I'm the editor) and then what I thought was
to myself "let's get this over with" I reached into my
pocket and dropped to my knee and with the words..."Christie I
love you to death, Will you Mary me." Naturally I was expecting
an immediate yes, but she just sat there with this big smile on her
face. I was dumbfounded I didn't know what to do. So the first thing
that came to mind was..."PLEASE" when she finally answered
"YES of course"
All of the planning had paid off. She was
completely surprised...so surprised that she couldn't answer the
first time!
We capped off the evening with a "romantic"
dinner at the Cheesecake factory. I mean nothing says romance like
your new fiancé ordering chicken and biscuits for dinner !!
In Retrospect dinner was probably a bad idea. The time she
didn't spend on the phone telling everyone was spent crying hysterically
through dinner, gee did we turn some heads !! The best part
came when we headed to pickles to meet all her friends. She
didn't know they were all going to be there but when we walked in
they uncorked the Champaign to the tune of a group congratulations
!! The smile on her face will stay in my mind forever...
