Beware, this is a really long blog but if you stick with me, I think that you will enjoy it! In contrast to last week this is probably one of the most eventful weeks I have ever lived. And it’s only Wednesday!

I should begin on Sunday night right after I sent in my last blog. After feeling totally fine all day, I stated to have some serious stomach pain. I ended up spending the majority of the night slumped in a ball on the bathroom floor cursing my cast iron (except in moving vehicles) stomach and wishing that I could just throw up and get it all over with.

Fortunately, I think that whatever bug it was burnt itself out with intensity and I started feeling better as Monday went on. My boyfriend, Greg, was going to take me out to dinner on Monday night as sort of a last outing before we go to Japan but I told him that I wasn’t sure that I would be able to go. He was pretty disappointed but just said that we could do whatever I felt like doing. He told me that he had to go into the city to meet with a work colleague so I would just see him after practice.

Practice actually took longer than I thought and I was getting a little stressed out because Greg had told me that he wanted us to be dressed up and ready to go at 4:30 but I was just getting out of the pool at 4:15. I showered, dressed and biked quickly home. When I got there, Greg was waiting and I told him that I thought that I felt well enough to go out. I threw on a dress, heels and makeup we were actually out the door by 5. Yay me!

As we were walking out we ran into my neighbors, Tim and Kerrie, who commented on how we were dressed up and joked about if Greg had “a lump in his pocket.” When we got in the car Greg corrected me on my assumption that we were going to the city and told me that we were going to Half Moon Bay.

As we drove out there I asked him about his meeting and he told me all about the guy he met. When we got to Half Moon Bay he pointed out the restaurant that we were going to but said that we had a while before our reservation. I said, “Oh, we have 6:30 reservations?” and he replied, “You wish – it’s 7:15. I made the reservations so that we could watch the sunset during dinner.” Well, the true swimmer that I am, I was unsure that I could make it that long without food so I suggested that we go to another place beforehand and get something to drink and some appetizers. However, Greg was adamant that we were going to the beach.

When we finally parked to go down to the beach I realized that it was really windy and that I had forgotten to bring a hair tie. I was annoyed about having my hair all in my face but then I remembered that there was a hair tie on the emergency kit in the trunk. I asked Greg to pop the trunk but he didn’t seem to hear me and grabbed my hand and started walking to the boardwalk. I kept saying, “But what about my hair tie? And a blanket to sit on?” To which he replied, “Come on, we are just going to check it out.”

OK, well something suspicious was going on and I thought, “Is he going to propose to me? – Nah.” So we walked out on the bluff overlooking the beach and while we were enjoying the view he started talking about how much he loves me and all that. That isn’t really a rare occurrence so I really didn’t think too much about it. As a result, it was a pretty big surprise when he turned me around, got down on one knee, and asked me to marry him!

I said yes, of course, and I have to say that he also did a very good job picking out the ring. It turns out that his real outing that afternoon had been to pick up the ring that he’d ordered a few weeks earlier from the jeweler and he had been totally lying to me about meeting with his work colleague. My neighbors didn’t have any clue about it (the lump in Greg’s pocket being the ring) but I have to give Greg credit for staying cool during that conversation. Oh yeah, there was champagne in the trunk and bag with stuff about the ring so that’s why he didn’t want to open the trunk.

All you ladies who are reading this will probably want to know a little bit about the ring. It is from a company called Brilliant Earth whose slogan is “Luxury with a Conscience.” That means that all their diamonds are Canadian and tracked from the mine to the ring so that they are all fair trade, conflict free, and uncorrupted (socially). The Platinum is recycled whenever possible and when it isn’t it’s conscientiously mined. And finally, a portion of the profit goes to Diamonds for Africa, a charity that helps to repair the damage done to communities in Africa by the diamond trade. I’ve included a picture of it and of us just as we returned from our date – our neighbor Tim took them.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 15th, 2007 at 12:15 pm and is filed under tarakirk. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.