The toughest secret I've ever had to keep

Two months ago I found myself in little fifth floor office on the corner of Geary and Market in San Francisco. It was a tuesday around 1pm and Adina was at work thought I was running errands in Capitola, or more realistically, lazing around on the couch putzing the day away. Before me was what amounted to an amphitheater of rings in all shapes and sizes. The next tuesday I was back and had a plan of what I wanted. Beth, the gemologist that was helping me, had a fancy shmancy photoshop type mock up of the ring that we had designed and we went over the finishing touches and placed the order. A month later I was back, picking up the ring - and then I actually had to figure out what to do with the damn thing!



After a few sleepless night spent just thinking about taking the ring out and asking right then and there I finally remember that I owed Adina a Valentines Day because I had been working on actual Valentines and the plan began to take form. I got off duty that morning and it was all I could do not to speed (excessively) just to get the day started! After a shower we made breakfast together and headed down to Monterey. The plan was to spend the day just the two of us hanging out and ended up taking a walk that we always used to when Adina was in school there along the harbor and then had a picnic on a lawn overlooking the bay.



We had done this before and it was one of my favorite dates that we had been on (a picture from that one is above). It was a little cloudy and overcast this time, but still beautiful out and picnics are always fun. Afterword we headed over to Adinas friend Jennys house to change. Adina knew a suprise was coming, that were had to be a little dressed up and that it was going to be outside, and that was it. She had been spending the entire day trying to guess what it was, or atleast trying to figure a little out about what might be happening. I spent the entire time hicuping because I was so nervous and trying to come up with witty ways to deflect her questions without giving away the actual surprise.



Out to Asilomar State Beach we went, parking in a little turn out on the side of the road and following a sand path out to a little gazebo on a bluff overlooking the rocky beach. We took in the view for a couple of minutes and I told Adina to close her eyes and, attempted, to stealthily take the ring out of my jacket that I had placed on the bench. After having what must have been the quietest panic attack in all of history because I couldn't remember what pocket I put the ring in and it wasnt in the first one I checked I finally found the ring and kneeled in front of my fiancé to be, took a deep breath and told her she could open her eyes. She looked like an Atom bomb of excitement just went off inside of her and I could tell as I started to speak that there was no time for the cheesy speech I had planned on giving because in the next few seconds she was either going to say "yes" faint or spontaneously combust and she was definitely going to make me ask. Hoping to avoid the faint or spontaneous combustion paths blurted out 'WILL YOU MARY ME!!@#!@!" and the next couple moments happened pretty quick but I do remember series of (incredibly) cute noises that had a "YES!!!" in there somewhere, a whole lot of jumping up and down and a really big hug (oh yeah, and some tears :-p) - I'm still on a high from it and hope to never come down.

After all the phone calls were made to assorted family and friends we went to dinner at Passionfish, a nice restaurant in Pacific Grove that had excellent food and cater to any food allergy or need and highly suggest it to anyone thats going down there. After we drove back up home and spent our first night as an engaged couple before going back to work in the morning.