the engagement story!

hello this is tim, making my first post on stephanie's blog ever. this is stephanie - my commentary will be in lavender - wahahoho.

it started for me at the crack of dawn monday morning, 6am - april 13th 2009. steph and i were planning to have breakfast together at this restaurant recommended by pat and christine called schooner or later at the marina in long beach. steph thought it was just another one of my crazy early morning hangout ideas, so she didn't suspect anything. - our first hang out ever at the champagne bakery in del mar started at 5am. i didn't know much about tim then except that he was willing to do crazy things to make things happen - ....he hasn't changed much.

i wrote a song to propose to steph with, but i couldn't just carry around a guitar or plant it somewhere. so i asked pastor patrick to dress up as a random beach bum with a guitar near the spot where i wanted to propose. he disguised himself pretty well, with a dirty green jacket, tore up jeans, sunglasses, and a beanie. i think he also let his beard grow for a couple days.

he sat on an elevated porch behind a tree and waited for us to come around to the bench that overlooked the whole long beach marina. the rest of the team, naomi, jr, kathy, and ji hid close by to take pictures. christine and eden reserved a spot at the restaurant for us - tim and i have amazing, awesome, wonderful friends. they all woke up at around 4am and drove up from san diego to be a part of our engagement!.

thirty minutes later at 6:30am, steph arrived at the restaurant. she was ready to go eat, so i had to convince her that we needed to stretch our legs and go for a walk before eating and she obliged. i suggested that we revisit our old spot that "just so happened" to be nearby - tim texted me saying that schooner or later was right next to the crab pot, the restaurant we had dinner at a month ago when we discovered our bench with the view of the marina..he made it seem like he had no clue that it was at the same place. if you know steph, you know she's a very curious person. so as we were walking, i used that against her to make her curious about a secret "project" that i had been working on. she was so distracted trying to pry a clue from me, that she didn't even recognize patrick when we walked past the guitar strumming beach bum.

we sat down at our bench and after talking for a couple of minutes, i mustered up enough courage to get past my nervousness. i pulled out a set of notecards that i had written up the night before with the lyrics to my song to steph. i wrote them on notecards so that she could flip through each verse and chorus as i sang without looking ahead (she's a fast reader) - i am. speedy gonzalez fast! i don't remember anything i read though.

i told her to wait a second and i ran over to the "beach bum" and borrowed his guitar. patrick made me give him $20 to make it seem like it was a transaction with a stranger - i was too far away to hear anything they were saying...i found out after that patrick was telling tim to position me differently on the bench so he could be free to take pictures without me seeing him. i thought she would suspect something was going on -nope. i came back to the bench and sat on the ground in front of her and started to sing my song. she followed along as the song traced through our whole relationship, from when we first knew each other to the point of me wanting to marry her. - tim opted for a jack johnson-ey type song rather than a ballad or weepy love song....he knows me well! i won't post up the lyrics here but i'll try and make him sing it again at our wedding ;).

on the last notecard, i taped steph's old plain silver ring that i had been holding onto for half a year. after the song, i returned the guitar to the beach bum and went back to steph. i got down on one knee and asked her to marry me. that was a pretty nerve-wracking moment, i think i was shaking as i popped the question - he was shaking..so crazy, i don't think i've ever seen him that nervous. she was gracious and gave me a hug and nodded her head. i think that meant yes. come to think of it, she never said yes. all i got was a head nod. it meant YES!!

once the proposal was over, we walked back to the restaurant and the whole crew - minus patrick - was waiting there to surprise steph. a few minutes later, patrick made his entrance into the restaurant as the beach bum and revealed himself to steph's surprise. i think she was in shock for a the rest of the morning - i used to think i was somewhat perceptive, but this morning taught me how unobservant i am. i never felt so happy to be tricked :) we have to go back to schooner or later. it's supposed to be a GREAT restaurant, but we have no memory of anything we ate that day...except the chicken feet i got to experience for the first time later at lunch.

we spent the rest of the day eating with our families and shopping for a better replacement for her plain silver ring (i keep both on always).

thank you friends for all your congratulations + love.

we are truly thankful for all of you! we're sorry if some of you had to find out through lame-o facebook, but we're glad we can finally share the details + pictures with you from the day.