If you didn't get it from my last post...

...I'm Engaged!!!

Ben and I met over the summer on a blind date while I was visiting my "sister" in San Francisco. She thought it'd be fun for me to go on a date while I was there and arranged, with his sister-in-law, for us to meet. He had a fun evening planned with dinner followed by a sand-castle-building-competition at the beach. We went to the Elephant Bar Restaurant in Burlingame where I had the MisoYaki Fresh Grilled Salmon.
It was absolutely delicious! In fact, I still crave it every so often. Ben decided to be original with a couple mini-burgers and fries. We started talking and basically never stopped. By the time we finished our Chocolate molten lava cake and Crème Brulee, the fog had rolled in off the Bay and it was completely dark outside. We had to go to Plan B: watching a movie over at his house... Serendipity. That was Wednesday.

On Thursday we decided to go to the beach for part 2 of our first date: The Sand Castle Competition. The competition part didn't work out so well, but we did end up making one fine sand castle.
Ben was so cute though! He brought a blanket and buckets and even packed a picnic dinner. After building the sand castle and getting drenched in the tide (like usual, I can't go to the ocean and stay dry), he carried me back to the car where we dried off and then sat on a bench to watch the sun set. Wie romantisch!
Afterwards we went back to Meagan's and helped her set up a facebook account. :)

Friday I was going to babysit for Meagan and Benj while they went on a date. At the last minute I decided to take Ben up on his offer to help me babysit. He came over and we had a blast taking care of Meagan's girls.


I discovered that Ben is great with kids!
I remeber thinking that it was too bad I wasn't that interested in him, because he was going to make a great father some day. He read to Ella while I put Anne to bed and then the three of us had a dance party in the living room.

***4 Months Later***

The Engagement Story. December 5, 2008

We were studying/watching a movie at my house when he got a phone call and had to leave suddenly. I was grading papers and paying more attention to the movie than to his phone call, so I didn't really mind, especially when he said it would only take 30 minutes.
Soon after he left, the doorbell rang and there were 5 roses sitting on the front porch, each with a different reason of why he loves me tied to it. It was so cute! At first I had a feeling that he was going to propose, but I talkled myself out of it saying that he did cute things like that all the time. I put the roses in a vase and sat back down to continue my movie/grading. As soon as I got comfortable, the doorbell rang again! There were another few roses with more reasons. I put those in the vase as well and sat down again. Just like before, as soon as I got comfortable the doorbell rang again!
This continued until I had 23 roses, each with a different reason why he loves me. The last rose came just before I sat down (thankfully) with a note telling me that I had dinner reservations at 6 and my chauffer would be picking me up at 5, to put on a nice dress and call my sister if I had any questions.
So... I sat down and finished grading the papers. When I looked at the clock I only had 10 minutes to get ready, so I panicked and ran around trying to find something to wear. I finished getting ready just as his roommate arrived and we headed out on the long drive to Sandy, UT, to the most incredible restaurant I've been to this side of the Atlantic: La Caille. It's a beautiful French restaurant built in the style of a French Chateau with most of the antiques imported from France.
We drove up the tree-lined drive where everything was decorated with Christmas lights and I was completely in awe of the whole thing. When we arrived, we went up to the third floor where Ben was waiting for me. He had the whole floor reserved so that we were completely alone. We had an amazing meal (Baked Onion Soup, Apple and Walnut salad on Butter lettuce, and Eastern Duck in a pomegranate sauce for me and Lobster Bisque, Arugula and Goat cheese salad, and a Steak with Scotch-Peppercorn sauce for Ben). It was another one of those meals where, afterward, I never wanted to eat again, for fear of doing that meal an injustice.
After dinner we went outside in what may have seemed a futile attempt to die of frostbite, but was really just another part of a wonderfully romantic evening - looking at all the Christmas lights. We walked around the grounds and then up the hill to a gazebo by a little pond. I was completely enthralled by the swan so I didn't notice the bench or the little box sitting on it. Ben suggested that we sit down and I when turned around he pretended to be startled and asked what it was. He sat me down on the bench and then got down on one knee and told me how much he loves me and asked me to marry him. As I said yes, I noticed camera flashes all around us. Then my sister and cousin jumped out of the bushes and took a ton of pictures of us, making us pose all over the grounds as well. He was so cute about all of it and it really couldn't have been more perfect. :)