How to successfully ruin a proposal...4 times

OK, I'm not going to say I ruined the potential proposals on purpose...but indirectly, I totally did.

You see, my dude is a perfectionist. I think a lot of it has to do with being part of the military, so much is expected of you that you begin to expect nothing less in your daily life. For something as life changing as a proposal, the stars would have to align and then you would get the go-ahead.

#1
The first spoiled attempt came 6 months AFTER the expected purchase date of said ring. I had taken a week off of work and decided to go visit the dude up north. The day before I left I got a phone call from the dude letting me know he needed the suit bag underneath the bed. Uh...ok. So I lugged it out. At this point that bag had been exclusively used to haul my business to and from the corporate office of the company I was working for. I hadn't been to corporate for about 6 months and it was fairly dusty at this point. I lugged it out and I could tell there was stuff in it. I figured I'd clean it out for him, so I opened up one side and pulled out all kinds of papers and what not. Flipped the bag over, unzipped the outside...and BLAMO, there was the bag that contained the ring. HOLY CRAPOLA! I'm getting engaged this weekend.

I close the bag, I did NOT look at the ring (seriously, I didn't...I was just freaking out)...and I put it in the car with the rest of my stuff. I made the trip and acted like the bag was nothing. I never even mentioned the bag while we were there. The dude kept wanting to go on 'hikes' to really pretty places. I mean...look at the country side in which he grew up!

(photo by me)

There are so many magical places for an amazing proposal to occur. But alas, I kept shutting him down. "Nah, let's go hang out with friends." "Nah, let's stay in and walk the dog or something." So we did. We had a really fun time on this trip. I left a couple days later, sans suit bag in my trunk.

#2
The second attempt I spoiled was on one of our last little trips while living in Southern California. The dude had gotten a couple days off from work and came down to visit for more than the usual two day stint. He decided he was going to plan everything that weekend and take me somewhere special. Naturally, I assumed this would be it. We would be getting engaged on this trip. Yippee (sorta...seriously, I was still nervous at this idea). So he chose to take a weekend trip to San Diego so we could hang out at the beach and spend a day at Sea World. Awesome! I love Shamu.

So we went. We stayed at an AMAZING hotel right on the water. We ate breakfast burritos. We had a blast at Sea World. We were pretty exhausted from so much work, that we spent most of the rest of the time hanging out in the hotel room, just relaxing. The dude kept begging and begging to go for a walk on the beach. "Ummmm, no...I'm tired...and the Sharks are playing." Never one to push me too hard, he gave in and we drank root beer in the room and ate cookies while the Sharks won their game and the ring stayed snug as a bug in a rug in his suit case.

The dude and I waiting for the Shamu show to start


Shamu and I

I know I sound horrible...I really did/do want to marry this guy. I don't know why I kept getting in the way.

Next time we'll talk about proposal foil #3 and 4.

Were you nervous as heck about getting engaged or were you totally ready?