Engagement Anniversary

On St. Patrick's Day, March 17, 2008, I asked CheyAnn to marry me. And if you've ever looked anywhere else on this blog, you'll know that she said yes. It was a wonderful moment in my life, and CheyAnn's life.

Here is the story:

She really had no idea the question was coming, but we'd talked about marriage and we were definitely both very amenable to it. I had made some plans to pop the Q, but they fell through at the last moment, which turned out to be a good thing because they were pretty cheesy plans. I don't want to damage my really cool image by revealing them here.

My family was had flown up to Utah that day for some Spring Break skiing, and had little rented a cabin way up in the mountains at Sundance. A fantastic setting.

So on Monday, I drove around Provo looking for the right flowers for my perfect plan. I don't remember what it was exactly, but no one had enough of what I wanted in the right combination (tons of tulips, I think (must've been out of season)), so I drove all over town, scrambling against the time. I had to pick up the flowers (which I finally found, but wouldn't be ready for several hours), then drive up to the cabin, then drive back to Provo to pick CheyAnn up from work to take her out on a date. A tight itinerary, but very doable.

Until I had a minor accident at an intersection. Yeah, it was my fault. No, no one got hurt. Whatever. Geico can be grateful for the steep premiums I've paid. (I'm now 3 years without a ticket or wreck, so boo-ya.) So, I sat around for two hours, waiting for the stellar Provo PD to arrive, talk to everyone, listen to the radio in their car, talk some more, and I don't know what else they were doing.

The clock was ticking away at my plans, destroying them. Thankfully, my family was there as a great backup. They picked up the flowers and took them up to the cabin and my sisters had the whole place decorated with rose petals quite beautifully.

After thanking the officer, my plan was back in action. I picked up CheyAnn from work on time, and I was a little dressed up, but I used to dress pretty preppy all the time back then. She knew that my family was in town, so I told her that we were going to meet them for dinner at the Foundry Grill at Sundance, which just so happens to be our favorite place. On the way up however, I tricked her by telling her that my whole family had bailed on dinner to go to a movie, and it was just going to be the two of us. She bought it completely.

After a very romantic dinner, I said we could just meet them up at the cabin. But as we drove up, I said, "Hmmm... They must not be back yet." As I led her inside, all of the lights were off. Inside the main room, there was this huge bear sculpture that I had told her all about, so I had her close her eyes to walk in and see the bear. But when she opened her eyes, she was in a room full of flowers, and she started freaking out. "Babe!? What is this?! Baby?" I got down on my knee and handed her a tulip with the ring around the base of the flower.

She said yes. And it has been awesome.

Austin Road Tripper

On Monday, we took our first family road trip! We headed up to Austin for the day, mainly to check out UT Law School. Solana was an awesome road tripper! She mostly just slept in her car seat, and it was really only a two hour drive, so she did fine.

A couple weeks ago, I was waitlisted at UT Law, so I decided to go and visit and take a tour and show that I'm still interested. I'd been debating whether to go or not, and finally made up my mind in the morning that I would just run up there by myself for a quick turn-around visit. However, on my way to work, CheyAnn called and said they wanted to go! So we went.

UT was cool, but no one really wants to hear about that... No, the most exciting part of the trip was hanging out with CheyAnn and this little person:

We enjoyed Austin, and Solana and CheyAnn played in a park while I sat in on a law class, and then we headed to a cool place for dinner out on Lake Travis, called Oasis. Lake Travis is probably 20 minutes west of Austin, and it's about as close to mountainous as Texas gets, which I loved. It was a fun drive with a lot of winding mountaintop vistas. CheyAnn and I traded "Reminds me of Montana" and "reminds me of California" comments the whole way there and back.

The restaurant sits at the top of one of these mountains, something like 400 feet directly over the lake, and to an ol' boy from Texas, this was one of the best views I've ever seen down here. CheyAnn, however, was less impressed: "There are tons of restaurants overlooking the ocean in California." While that may be true, it didn't diminish our great experience. Solana, who established herself as an excellent road-tripper, was also an excellent restaurant patron, enjoying avocados and cheerios.

On the way back, we of course stopped by the outlets, and got hooked up.

Next up: Dallas in a couple weeks, then Virginia in a month!

I said, "Solana, look at that silly big metal bird!" She thought that was really funny, and then CheyAnn took the picture.

Nope, it's not the Mediterranean Coast. Not in Montana, either. It's the Texas Hill Country!

And that's pretty much the cutest person you'll see all day!

Alamo We Go

When you grow up in a city with history, how often do you actually  go and see the sights or know the history? I grew up in SJC, and how many times did I actually go to the swallows parade or see the mission? Not that many. Well the same goes for Adam, he grew up next to one the top 10 historic sites in the U.S. But has only seen it a couple of times.  So since it was 175th anniversary of the battle, we headed downtown to enjoy the celebration. It was great to be inside something that was built in the early 1700's and to learn so much of history that took place here.  It was a beautiful day and we learned so much about good ol' San Antone. 

I took this picture off the internet, I couldn't get an actual one since there were mobs of people around it. 

A stoned couple was nice enough to offer to take our picture, we just had to return the favor and take theirs, sure! People here are so friendly.

Outside the Alamo, Solana is going through her waving phase. It really makes us laugh.

The Alamo is actually pretty small, so it was easy to hop right up on the wall and take some pictures.