(The Proposal Through Katie’s Eyes)

It officially went down…Easter Sunday morning (which also happened to be our 1 year anniversary) Merrick and I had a nice Easter brunch, then we spent part of the afternoon at Laguna Beach. It could not have been more perfect weather - 80’s, sunny, gorgeous!!! Then he had made dinner reservations for us that evening, so we went back to his place and got ready… We made it snazzy… suit and tie, pretty dress and heels… going ALL out! =)

So we drive to this city called Dana Point, a beach community just south of him. The restaurant was this amazing seafood place and we had a PERFECT view of the harbor, the ocean and this BEAUTIFUL hotel right next door. So we ordered a nice bottle of wine and food and had a great time. He kept joking about how “when we’re married and rich we’ll stay at that hotel blah blah blah” and I didn’t really pay much attention to it. So then after dinner he was like, “lets just go back to my place, open our anniversary presents and just chill” So we get into his car and he’s like “But first I’m going to blindfold you” So he puts the blind fold on me and drives around for about 10 min, then stops, takes me out of the car, leads me into a building and up an elevator then into a room.

So he takes off my blindfold and we’re in the top penthouse suite of the hotel… HUGE balcony overlooking the harbor and ocean, fire going in the fireplace, rose petals all over the floor and our song playing on the iPod. (His roommate had set everything up while we were at dinner). Then he’s like, “lets open our presents.” So we go over to the fireplace where all of our presents were. I open up a huge 18×24 empty picture frame and I’m thinking that he is going to give me a picture of he and I blown up or something that we can frame. Then the next present I open is a puzzle, and we’ve done puzzles before, and I’ve made him a picture puzzle of he and I so he said “Lets do the puzzle then we can frame it!” … I still have no idea at this point…

So we sit by the fireplace and start putting the puzzle together, and I’m not very good at puzzles and kept trying to put pieces together in the middle that just were NOT fitting and it was getting so annoying!! So we finally finished putting it together (about 200 pieces), and the border was about 20 2×2 pictures of he and I, and in the center was one beach picture of us. In the top left hand corner said “Catherine Anne I love you” and the bottom right hand corner said “Yours forever, Merrick Joel” But there were a bunch of pieces missing in the middle and he was like, “Shoot, maybe I lost them when I was transferred the puzzle here” but we looked around us then he “found” them next to him (aka pulled the other pieces out of his suit jacket), so we started putting the whole middle chunk together and it said “Will you marry me?”

When it was finally all put together (which I really ONLY knew what was going on those very last moments when I could read the middle part before it was completely put together) I just stared at the puzzle and at him, then he brought out the ring and was like, “So will you marry me?” AAHHHH and of course I cried and said YES YES YES!!!! =) But I was pretty speechless for a couple minutes before I answered. Then he popped some champagne and watched the stars and hung out in the amazing hotel with my amazing fiance!!! =) Once it got pretty late, Merrick went downstairs to another room he had rented for himself, and let me just bask in the huge suite he had rented for me! I had all those roses and champagne all to myself!!!

So that was Easter Sunday… then Monday he had taken the day off and had told me we were going to meet his 2 coworkers for lunch. So when we get there, it’s not just Travis and Sara, it’s almost ALL of our mutual friends there for a surprise engagement lunch!!! It was so fun and so nice to see everyone (and show off my beautiful ring!) After lunch we went back to his place for a while and as part of my anniversary gift to him, I had gotten us a ride on a hot air balloon over San Diego at sunset. So we went in the hot air balloon, which was AWESOME and floated over SD in the sunset… We were up for about an hour and a half; just cruising along then they had champagne for us at the end…

Ah, a perfect end to a PERFECT weekend =) =) =)