For all of you that don't know much about us, our adventure started when we first started talking at Derek Mulhern's going away party. We had seen each other a couple times at some college events, but never really had the opportunity to get to know each other better. I think the funniest part about us meeting is that Derek saw this coming before we ever had an inkling. Turned out Mandi couldn't resist my awesome personality and amazingly good looks!! ;)
Ok, ok... I'll cut to the chase.. I suppose most of you are probably reading this blog because you want to know how the "will you marry me?" all went down.. As most of you know, Mandi and I had been dating for over 2 1/2 years so its no secret that it had been talked about, etc. However, for something that seemed so certain, I was determined to catch her completely off guard... Not as difficult as it may seem if you know how gullable Mandi is!
Anyways, I had purchased the ring back on June 30th, but wanted to wait for the right time to actually do it. 2 years ago, we went up to Duluth, MN (and the rest of the north shore) for a nice getaway and really enjoyed it. We are pretty big into the outdoors, camping, hiking, etc. so its a perfect vacation spot for us! So I thought, what could be a better place than asking on the shore of Lake Superior.
When we finally decided on a location, we thought we would head up on a Friday and leave a week later. I told Mandi I was going to book us a campsite next to Lake Superior at Lambs Resort for the week, that way we didn't have to worry about packing and unpacking multiple times throughout the week (btw.. Lambs Resort is a great place to camp if you want to be near the shore of Lake Superior.. highly recommend!) So what I really did was only booked the site from Friday through Thursday with us planning to stay in a cottage at Cove Point Lodge on the final night. So I went ahead and told Mandi that the campsite was booked on Thursday night and that we were going to have to find another place to stay. Lucky for me, I have an uncle that stays at a resort quite often on the North Shore and so I told Mandi I would talk to him to see if he could line us up with any deal. I waited a couple days and told Mandi that my uncle thought he could line something up for us for Thursday night and it would be pretty cheap. With that, everything was set.
We then spent that whole week up on the North Shore doing various activities and of course the talk on being engaged was brough up multiple times. She would kind of bring it up on how she gets asked all the time on when we were getting engaged etc, and then it would just open it up for me to ask stupid questions to lead her on like: "I wonder what your dad will say when I ask him" or "What kind of ring do you want", etc.. My favorite comment of the whole trip was when Mandi said, "You know its probably a good thing I know you aren't going to ask me on this trip because otherwise I would be thinking the whole time about when you are going to ask.. It'd probably take away from the vacation.. Now I can just relax".............Hahaha. Perfect.
Well, Thursday came and I told her that Mike said he was able to hook us up with discounted price on a place at Cove Point Lodge in Beaver Bay, MN. I told Mandi that I had no clue what to expect and that my uncle made it sound like we may get something nice or we could just end up in the lodge.. It would all depend on what rooms they didn't fill for that night (similar to Hotwire). As you've probably already figured out... I hadn't talked to my uncle at all... So I went in and checked-in and came back out to the car. Mandi: "Well what do we have for a room?" I told her that I didn't really have a clue yet and that the hotel guy made it sound like we were getting a deal. We pull up to the cottage, open the door... Mandi's jaw dropped. Of course I played along and pretended like I was SO surprised to be in this cottage that had two floors with a full kitchen, deck, whirlpool, and amazing views of Lake Superior... PLUS we got such a great deal!!! Ha... not so much, but it was worth it!
Ok, so we got the ring... Got the lodge.. Now I just have to find a place to ask her.. When I originally booked a room here. They had told me that there is a really nice spot on a peninsula with great views of the lake so I thought maybe that would be a good spot to ask her.. Well, we get to the the lodge and we are looking at the map for where this peninsula is at and of course its called "Proposal Point". Great... Not gonna happen. So I had to be creative and told Mandi that we should go for a little walk and just check things out. After doing a little searching, we found a really nice place to sit down and look out over the lake right next to the cottage (after climbing down some rocks). When we got down to this spot, Mandi says, "This would be a perfect place to come down to tonight! We should get a bottle of wine and bring a blanket down here and watch the sun go down." Once again, thank you Mandi for literally saying the things that I was planning on doing. This just helped in keeping the night low key without her gathering any sort of insight.
We ate dinner and then headed down to this spot. It couldn't have been any more perfect. Clear, comfortable night with a bottle of wine..two red solo cups.. and a blanket. We ended up going down there about 8 and stayed for about an hour.
After trying to get Mandi to go back up a couple times, she finally was ready to head up (I wanted her to be able to see the ring without it being so dark). As Mandi started heading up, I stopped her and said, "Mandi, I need to tell you something." Of course, she turns around and says a smartass comment like, "Oh do you have some sort of sentimental speech you want to say to me?", with a big grin on her face. Then I proceeded to tell her that I hadn't been honest about something and instantly she got a smile on her face and I think she saw the writing on the wall. Of course, I had to toy with her a little more and said, "I didn't get this place for as cheap as you thought." Instantly, she got this disappointed look on her face and said, "Oh you didn't have to spend a lot on this. It really would have been ok." Then she turned away to head up the rocks and I said, "Actually I got one more thing I need to be honest about, but this requires a little more explaining." Then I proceeded to tell her how much she means to me and that I couldn't imagine being without her etc, etc. (I know you guys get the point) and finished with saying that, "My final thing is that I bought a ring and its right here". Then she started crying, and I mean crying. When I got down on one knee I told her to look at me because she had her hands in front of her eyes.. Then I asked and she said yes with a couple head bobs (it was good enough for me!) as she continued to cry. Not sure how it stayed such a surprise to her, but she was completely shocked! Mission Accomplished! I think my favorite part of the whole thing was that we had made our own little spot on the shore of Lake Superior. There was literally no one down by us and the night couldn't have been any more perect. |
| View from where I asked her |
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| Again |
