Nick's Take
This is my account I sent to one of my friends back in the day(with some minor edits to get at PG-13 rating).
Anyone that knows me knows that I have very little desirable traits.
I'm not really all that attractive ... I'm a lanky, tall guy with a beer belly (not sexy) and my face is more of a resemblance to an armpit than a Brad Pitt.
Oh, I have smelly feet too. Anyway, Colleen is pretty much a goddess and I'm pretty hurtin' so around the end of 2004 or so I decided that I should
probably propose before she came to her senses and left me for someone else.
So ... the number one criteria for this proposal would be the element of surprise ... there is
nothing more that I hate than hearing girls talking about how they dragged their guy ring
shopping and knew the exact time & date of the proposal before it happened. It's like sentencing the poor
guy to death row ... he counts down his remaining free days. At least with me I was doing it on my own terms ... instead
of being on death row it was more like assisted suicide. Anyway, back to the story and the element of surprise ... I figured
the best possible day to propose was Valentine's Day since that would be the day that she would least
expect cause I'm always ripping on Valentine's Day. That ... and it is the only day of the year that she
could come home to me all dressed up and having cooked dinner and bought flowers without becoming suspicious that nothing was up.
So, for setting the mood I cooked up some salmon for dinner, got some wine, got some flowers, put on a suit, etc.
When she first got home I gave her a card that had a little bent staple in it with an arrow
pointing at it saying, "This is the key to my heart. Please do not lose it." (THIS PART IS IMPORTANT LATER ON
SO I HOPE YOU WERE PAYING ATTENTION). Coincidentally, Colleen also gave me a card that actually discussed
keys to hearts. Weird, huh? So, after dinner I gave her a book,
*** BOOK BACK STORY ***
On the first Valentine's Day we were dating I gave Colleen a book with little cartoons in it that I
drew describing events in our lives. First chapter was meeting her, next chapter was first date, etc. I said it
was an ongoing present in the fact that I would keep putting new chapters in as we dated. The book that I gave her on
the night of the proposal was supposed to be the sequel to that book, with the first chapter being about the day I was
giving her the book, i.e. Valentine's Day 2005.
*** END BOOK BACK STORY ***
Still with me ... alright, good. Anyway, I got down on my knees (smooth, smooth) to read the book with her.
It was pretty standard until it got to a page with a heart in the middle. I had actually drilled a hole in the book
and put a cardboard heart at the top of the hole so you couldn't tell it was a hole. I told Colleen to get the key to my
heart (the heart in the book had a small hole in it ) and to pull it out. When she did, she found the ring was in the hole in
the book ... AND, AND when you turn to the page where the hole stopped (where the ring was resting) it had a picture of me on my
knees and it said, "Nick is proposing, what should he say." and there were multiple checkboxes so Colleen could pick what she
wanted me to say. She went with the booooring choice of "Colleen, will you marry me?" which I in turn asked her and after gasping
for air for quite a while she said yes. Then we made out and drank champagne. The End.
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Colleen's Take
The following account is how I described the evening a day or so later in e-mails to my friends.
I had thought that this would happen after Nick finished his PhD in 5 years or so, but never in my wildest dreams did I think it would happen now. He intended (and succeeded!) to completely sweep me off my feet!
A slight background story before I jump in. The first Valentines Day that Nick and I spent together, he requested for me to return to my house dressed up for the occasion at a certain time. When I arrived, he had made dinner and placed candles around the townhouse. After dinner, he gave me a wonderful present - a book of our adventures. Nick has drawn a comic strip in the past, and was comics editor in college. The book protrayed comics of the two of us at our first meeting, on our first date, and through our other adventures in dating. It's been an ongoing project, he adds a chapter to it whenever he gets a chance. Originally it was supposed to be a chapter each month, but with the hectic life of a grad student and everything else going on, it's a lot less than that. It's awesome :)
Before this past Valentines Day was near, we talked and Nick said that he was going to do something on the 14th (Monday). I wanted a night to give him my gift, so I gave him his gift on Thurs 2/10. My gift was somewhat untraditional. I gave Nick a Nebraska football tailgate party, which I was somewhat proud of myself for catering the gift to him so brilliantly! I decorated everything with Huskers red and white streamers and balloons, made Nebraska fast food (runza's, recipe coutesy of Alisha Wist), cheese fondue, and other game day snackables. I made sure to have plenty of beer and champagne for the occasion. As everyone knows, college football season is over long before February. To solve that problem, I bought a DVD of Nick's favorite game from the 90s and we watched that as if it were new on TV right then. All in all, it was a good night. It doesn't even come close to comparing to the evening he had in store for me!
Similiarly to our first Valentines Day, the only thing I knew was planned on the 14th was that Nick was making me dinner. Nick asked me to get dressed up in a dress he had picked out for me and to come home at 6:30PM that night. I went to work on Monday and then got my gym on. I got all decked out at the gym and then killed some time in Borders awaiting for 6:30 to come around.
When I arrived home at 6:30, I was greated at the door by my amazing boyfriend in a suit. :) There were candles lit all over the living and dining rooms. Dinner had already been served on the table. Nick had made salmon with lemon herb sauce with mixed vegetables on the side. There was wine chilled (Yellow Tail Chardonnay) and ready for dinner and a dozen red roses on the table. :) YAY fancy dinner at home!
We sat down at the table, and before we started eating, we exchanged cards. It was sorta funny because we both gave each other a card with "the key to my heart" in it on mine, the key was the front of the card, and on Nick's, he taped this bent staple into the card and written "here is the key to my heart, don't lose it!".
We ate dinner, talked about our days, drank wine, etc. Twas nice. After we were done eating, Nick was like "don't you want your present?" and I waslike ok :)
He leans over to the buffet and opens the top drawer and pulls out another book! He was like "I thought I'd make a recent book of our adventures now, and then we can keep filling in the other book too. This way we won't forget about anything". I'm totally psyched. I think I said "Oh, come over, will you read it with me?" Nick smiled and slid off his chair and kneeled on the floor next to my chair. He started reading me my new book :) This one is all about this Valentines Day how he got up and put on the heart boxers I'd left when I went to work. How he'd cleaned up the house, made dinner, found a vase for the flowers which ended up being the change jar because he didn't know where I'd put the actual vases. Then we got to the page which said "And Colleen thought this was just another normal book until she found the page with Nick's heart on it".
I turned the page to find a ~1" x 1" piece of cardboard IN the book (submerged into the rest of the pages). The cardboard had a picture of a heart on it and a little hole in the middle. It said "Nicks' Heart. Please enter key." Nick prompted me to go into the card he gave me and to get out the bent staple. I was kinda shocked and wondering and completely fuddled around getting it into the hole in the cardboard - my hand was shaking and Nick and to help me coax it in. When it was in and I was able to lift out the cardboard, there was a ring IN the book! He'd widdled out the remaining 200 pages of book to fit it in!
At this point, Nick is on his knees nest to my chair, holding a beautiful diamond solitaire. He asked me to flip to the back page of the book that the ring was resting on. That page had a picture of him exactly as he was - in a suit, on his knees, holding a sparkling ring. The page read "Nick is on his knees proposing to you. What would you like him to say?" There were 4 or 5 check boxes with different options such as "So I was in Walmart and figured what the hell" (we have a joke about walmart rings). :) I chose the option which read "Colleen, will you marry me?". I checked the box, and then Nick asked me "Colleen, will you marry me?"
I was shaking. And somewhat hypervenilating. I was so completely shocked! I took a second in my stunned/trouble breathing state to realize what was happening and to say "YES!" Nick had me sign and initial my choice as well as my YES - he has proof :) We popped a bottle of champagne which he had chilling. I think he said "I hope you don't mind that I was that confident, but I knew you'd say yes :)" He then sat me down and told me all about the sparkly perfection of this ring that he'd picked out it is completely brilliant. If I had every ring in the world to choose from, it is exactly what I would have picked myself. :)
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