Mike and Erica: May 2011

And our story begins...

(Long story too! I use our blog as a scrapbook so I have to document every detail!)

Over the past few months, I started to get the whole "ants in my pants" feeling since most of our friends were either newly engaged, married, having babies, etc. and I wondered when our time was going to come. Poor Mike was taking the brunt of it all and kept getting the same question, "When????" from not only me, but everyone else (family, friends, etc.). It was the question that weighed on my mind constantly considering the fact that we have been together for 7 years, bought a house together, and we both were beyond positive that we were going to spend the rest of our lives together. As March 18th passed (our anniversary), I thought maybe something was going to come soon...well I waited patiently and patiently...

***He said if I kept talking about getting engaged, it wasn't going to be a surprise...how could I not talk about it though?! :/

I was tired (to say the least) and just wanted to get home after sitting in traffic on the lovely 78. My phone rang and it happened to be Mike on the other end. He asked me if I remembered the glass cupcake pedestal stand that I had sitting on top of the refrigerator. Of course I knew what he was talking about! He proceeded to tell me that he had broke it while trying to get a recipe book down from the cupboard. UGH! I got mad and then later realized that I would go onto Pottery Barns website and look to see if they still had them (ironically that was one of my Christmas presents from him). I told him I would look for one and I wasn't mad (when in actuality I was since it was one of my favorite little decorations. I then called my mom to tell her how mad I was). When I finally got home, he had this sad look on his face and said, "don't start, I told you I was sorry." I told him it was fine and I looked it up already and they sure enough had them still. I told him to call Pottery Barn and have him go pick it up. He ended up calling La Jolla and had them put one on hold for him (he would be down tomorrow while I was at work to go pick it up). I was so relieved! (This was his plan to get us down to La Jolla...clever!.....he didn't actually break it on purpose...he was putting it away and did end up cracking the top :( )

This is the infamous cake stand! ;)

The next morning (May 10), he walked me to the garage and said his usual goodbye. He wasn't acting strange, etc. even though he asked me if later I wanted to go with him to pick up "the machine"...I mumbled yes and drove off. On my way to school, I started laughing to myself wondering what on Earth "the machine" was. I must have been tired when I left because I didn't question him at all. I called him right before I got to school and asked him what "the machine" was and he said "Oh well I meant the cake stand". I just laughed and promised him I would leave right after school. He was obviously nervous and words just came shooting like a rocket out of his mouth!

I called Mike on my way home from school to tell him I was on my way. He told me he needed to get out of the house because he felt like he had been in there too long that day. I was tired, but still willing to drive down with him to pick up the cake stand. When I got home, he was acting a little strange and didn't seem as relaxed as his usual self. I didn't think anything was unusual though. He started running around the house doing things and couldn't settle down. He got ready and left to go get the mail. Well, come to find out, this was when he called my dad. He was going to meet him in person, but feared my mom would catch on and find it fishy! Mike's number one concern was that the beans would be spilled if anyone other than my dad and his dad knew. Sure enough, they were the only two! He had to call my dad last minute before we left. On the drive down, I started teasing him (which was a normal thing within the last few months since I was overall antsy) about going to a "ring shop" to look at rings (since we had been looking months before too). I laughed and told him I would search his car (so ironic and the weirdest thing to say...) to find the ring....he must have been dying inside! He laughed and changed the subject!

We ended up at Pottery Barn. I managed to tell the girl the story about him breaking the stand, etc. while he stood there NERVOUS (I still had no inkling of anything,...), but still acting completely normal. It was his idea to go take a look at Crate and Barrel and see what they had as far as book cases since he has been looking for one. We were taking unusually long in the kitchen section (he always rushes me and never looks around himself). He was looking at everything (odd! He definitely was NERVOUS and come to find out, he was STALLING TOO since he wanted to make it to the beach at sunset 7:30! This was all in his plan!). I mentioned to him, as we were leaving, that it would be fun to walk around the store with the registry gun and register for things (again, how ironic and what an odd thing for me to say!). This was nothing he hadn't heard before, but was dying inside since he knew something was coming! We left Crate and Barrel and I thought we were headed home. He asked me if I wanted to walk around downtown or at the beach. He eliminated the choices and said, "we are going to walk at the beach" before I could answer. I told him I was starving since I hadn't eaten since noon. He said he wasn't ready for dinner and not hungry (when is he never hungry?!) and we would stop at Bristol Farms to get a snack. He had to play it off the entire time that he wasn't starving since he had to stall. As we got off the car, I noticed his hands were sticky and sweaty. I told him it was like he was going to give a presentation or something (again, another odd thing to say!). He proceeded to tell me it was the HAND SANITIZER gel he had just put on and to check my hands too because they were probably the same. I just ignored it and we went on our way.

We began driving towards the little downtown part of La Jolla as I ate my snack and we chatted. At this point, I still thought nothing was unusual. We started driving towards "Wind and Sea" (an area of beach) which was kind of over by where we went on our first date. Still didn't sense a THING! He put on a jacket he hadn't worn in a while and I thought it was kinda of funny he was wearing it since it was more of a winter jacket and it really wasn't that cold (again, another sign I didn't catch on to!). The sun was set to go down soon and it was a little chilly. It turns out, he had tried on 3 different jackets that afternoon to see which one hid the box! hahah! We started walking through the neighborhood where you turn off to go down the path to the set of rocks where we ended up on our first date. Still, I'm not thinking anything. We got down to the spot after he had managed to trip twice and still managed to have "sticky hands"! LOL! Nerves! There was a couple down on the rocks close to the water and 3 girls sitting closer to us talking. Too bad it wasn't just us. He was bummed, but knew he had to do it then! We hung around for a while looking down below at the water. We took a picture (which I posted to FB and for some reason, must have tipped everyone off that it was going to happen soon because most said so!)...still had no inkling what so ever because I had a feeling that I would be waiting another few months or so. We began to walk away and start walking up the hill and I began to tease him and tell him, "you know, we went here on our first date...but, you don't care!". I turned around and saw him down on his knee holding a box telling me, "but I do care"....there was nothing I could do, but BURST into tears! I was so taken back by the moment and was totally speechless...words cannot describe my emotions at that particular moment. After all of the events that took place earlier, the location we were at, etc. he managed to pull this whole thing off without me catching on to ONE THING! I could not believe it was truly happening! I cried for about (what felt like) 10 minutes straight and finally told him "YES"!!!!!!!!!! The ring he picked out is more than I could have ever imagined. It is the most perfect and beautiful ring EVER! Not only was I in shock, we both were!

This was the picture I took before he popped the question!!!....I uploaded it to FB and everyone guessed it...did I? NOPE!

First picture after being engaged! :)

After calling all of our family and close friends, we ended up making it down to San Diego for a celebratory dinner! Our friend Jengi was down there and we ended up getting a hold of her....she did not want to impose on our night (she kept telling us that it was "our night"...but we didn't care! We wanted her to be there to help us celebrate since she is basically family!). She was so gracious to take us to the Marble Room in the gaslamp and we were spoiled with a steak dinner, the best champagne, etc.! We are so lucky to have such an amazing friend like her and so glad she was there to help us celebrate!! :)

We didn't get home until late and didn't end up going to bed until about 2:30, yet I was up at 5 a.m. beaming and basically bouncing off the walls! I just could not sleep anymore! Mike was cracking up at me because I was up way too early since it was my day off from work and was wide awake since I was sooooo excited!! We ended up heading to an early breakfast at one of our favorite places in La Costa, The Broken Yolk. Mike thought it would be a lot of fun if his mom (we missed his dad since he is in London right now) and my parents came down and he would cook a celebratory dinner! We had such a good dinner together while Mike and I got to share our story (all the details). My mom made us a dirt cake (Mike's favorite!)with a Ring Pop on the top! So appropriate!

We were so in love before we were engaged, but now so much more! It just feels different (in the best way possible) and we are looking forward to spending the rest of our lives with one another!!! We are looking forward to all of the fun things ahead within this next year and celebrating with our family and friends! Let the planning begin baby!!! :)