Engaged

November 13th, 2009

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This past Tuesday, November 10, 2009, I finally did what a lot of friends and family were hoping for and proposed to Jess, my girlfriend of over 2.5 years. Actually, it was 2 years, 8 months (to the day in fact).

What follows, is the story of how I went about becoming the happiest guy imaginable.

The Ring

I wanted to make sure I had the ring before I started anything. To me, this was one of the most important parts. Jess and I had already looked at rings together about a month prior, so I knew what she liked and what she would want. Using that knowledge, I picked out the ring I would give her: a Scott Kay palladium solitaire ring. I went to the jeweler to have the diamond set in the ring, and once I saw the ring with the diamond set in it, I began to really get excited.

Getting the Families On Board

Monday night, the night before the proposal, I went over to my parents and told them I intended to propose to Jess “tomorrow night”. Their faces lit up and were very excited. My dad stood up instantly and hugged me and said “congratulations”; my mom said, “well it’s about time”, obviously indicating this was something the family had been anticipating and anxiously awaiting.

I said “good bye” to my parents, went outside to my car, and sat in my car in my parents’ driveway and called Jess’s parents, who live about 90 minutes north of us. I started the conversation by saying, “I’m sorry for doing this over the phone, this is something I wanted to discuss with you yesterday when we were up there, but someone, who goes by the name of ‘Jessica’ did not want to leave the house and I couldn’t talk to you guys alone.” I informed them of my intentions to marry their daughter, and asked for their blessing. Her dad said, “that would be wonderful!” Her mom said, “you know I won’t be able to sleep tonight now, this is exciting!” I then asked if they would be willing to drive down to San Diego the following night, and they agreed (once again I had apologized for such short notice, but they were excited).

With blessings from both families secured, I went about enacting my plan.

Putting the Plan in Action

Jess had school Tuesday morning, and work Tuesday afternoon. She actually wasn’t originally supposed to work on Tuesday, but picked up a shift, which worked in her favor as it allowed me to do everything I needed to do. Since she would be home for a period of time around noon, I knew I couldn’t do anything with the house until she went to work or else I would tip her off.

I went to work for the morning, but then I told her I was leaving around 12:30 to have lunch with a co-worker. At 12:30, I headed up to Bed Bath and Beyond and picked up a bag of 100 tea lights and some champagne flutes (we had none). Then I went to the grocery store and picked up fixin’s for dinner, a bottle of her favorite champagne, a dozen roses, and two bags of rose petals.

I returned home around 1:30, narrowly missing Jess as she went to work just 10 minutes prior to my returning home. I set to work on getting everything done I needed to, starting with dinner. I browned the pot roast and got it cooking in the crock pot. I then thoroughly cleaned up the kitchen and front room.

With about 2 hours to go before she returned home from work, I began working on our bedroom. I started by cleaning everything up, and then made the bed. I cleaned off the dresser and night stands and Pledged it all so it was nice and clean. I finished everything up by vacuuming the entire condo; let’s just say the house had not been this clean in months.

I placed about 50 tea lights throughout the room: on the dresser, TV stand, night stands, anything I could. I put the dozen roses on her night stand, and two champagne flutes underneath the roses. I placed her favorite teddy bear, Rocky, which she’s had since she was five years-old on the center of the bed.

I opened the first bag of rose petals and dumped them on the bed. I originally was going to just randomly place them on the bed, but that didn’t look so good; instead, I shaped all the rose petals into the shape of a heart. Using the second bag of petals, I sprinkled them all over the dresser and night stands (wherever there wasn’t a candle basically). Finally, I poured the champagne into the flutes.

Then, the most important part: I placed the ring box on the bear so it looked like he was holding it.

The stage was set, I was all ready to go.

Waiting

Normally Jess leaves work around 5:30PM, but tonight she was running a bit late. I get a call at almost 5:50, she was just leaving. We had discussed dinner, and I said I had figured something out and that the chicken was thawing out (I can’t keep my lies straight, probably a good thing). I already had everything set up, the candles all lit, and at this point was just pacing back and forth in the house waiting for her to make the drive home. It felt like this was her longest drive home, I was just so anxious.

I saw her drive up and I went back into the bedroom where everything was set up, and waited.

The Proposal

She came inside and called out to me, “hi”, I answered from the bedroom, “Hi”.

She walked upstairs, saw the clean house, “Why is the house so clean? When did you get home to clean?”

“Oh, I got home about 4:30 and the house was bugging me so I cleaned.”

Walking into the kitchen because she smelled the pot roast, “wait, this isn’t chicken? Why aren’t we having chicken?”

“I told you I figured dinner out. Can you come back here?”

“Why? What are you doing back there?”

“Will you just come back here please?”

She walks into the bedroom and looks at me, “What’s going on? Why are you dressed so nicely?” I could see it in her face, she knew what was going on. She started to get excited and tear up a little.

I said, “I think this is something you’ve been waiting a while for, and was hoping it would happen soon.” I grabbed her hands and looked in her eyes, and began pouring my heart out to her, choking back the tears.

After professing my love for her, I took the ring box from Rocky and got down on one knee, opened the box and said, “Jessica, will you marry me?” Well actually, she didn’t let me finish, she shouted “OF COURSE!” before I could even finish asking her.

She was still staring me in the eyes and never once looked at the ring, I said, “okay well will you look at the ring?” She took a look and smiled even more. I put the ring on her finger (the perfect size mind you), stood up and she just attacked me with hugs and kisses. We hugged for such a long time, because it was such a momentous occasion, but also because she was admiring the shiny new diamond ring she had on her finger while hugging me.

We toasted to each other with the champagne I already had poured, and I then informed her that her family was already on the way down from Riverside, and they’d be having dinner with us at the condo. She started clapping and let out a giggle.

Sharing the Joy

She was so giddy and excited that she literally was jumping up and down and staring at her hand. With her still in her work clothes, I said, “Okay, time to change, we need to go see my parents.” She was just so excited to show it off, she just shouted, “OKAY!!”

We went to my parents and they popped another bottle of champagne and we toasted there, hugged and just shared in the happiness together. We left my parents around 7:00 so I could finish making dinner and we could meet her parents at the condo. The parents were anxious to meet each other, so we invited my parents over for dessert around 8:30. We would have had them over for dinner too, but we don’t have enough room to host that many people (yet).

Her parents got there around 7:20 (they hit traffic) and they gave us a gift. Jess asked, “Do you mind if I just open it?” I said, “Yes I mind. That’s ‘our’ gift, and our first one since becoming an engaged couple, so we can open it together.” They had gotten us a beautiful pair of Waterford crystal champagne flutes (these: http://bit.ly/2BYBSD ). Her mom said we could use them for the wedding itself, but that doesn’t mean we had to wait until the wedding to use them, we christened them right then with what else, MORE CHAMPAGNE!

Anyway, we had dinner and had just finished cleaning up when my parents arrived. What better occasion for the parents to meet, right? They hit it off and got along well. We all sat around talking for about an hour, while Jess’s and my phones were lighting up with calls, texts, emails, and Facebook notifications. At one point I had 8 unread texts, 19 unread emails, and phone calls kept coming in.

Unwinding

The parents all left around 10:00, and Jess and I unwound in front of our computers; both of us answering and addressing all the Facebook posts and comments we received.

Jess later told me that everything I had done was all she could have ever wished for, she could not ask for anything better. She loves her ring and she loves the way I proposed. And anyone she tells the story to just has the same response, “awwwww”, which is all she wanted from me for a proposal. Her favorite part was that I used Rocky as part of the proposal and he was holding the ring, she thought that was the cutest thing ever.

The funny thing is, she doesn’t remember anything I said to her during the actual proposal, she was too busy going “OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG” in her head to comprehend what I was saying.

We went to bed just before 11:00 and both just collapsed; it had been a whirlwind of a day. One happy day neither of us will ever forget.

And now the fun that is planning a wedding begins …

Seven Years …

September 11th, 2008

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It’s amazing how quickly time seems to go by anymore, but when something big like the terrorist attacks happen, time seems to slow way down amid the chaos; it’s almost surreal.

I remember that day seven years ago today, rather vividly.

I woke up around 8:30, like it was any other Tuesday.  I had school that morning so I went into the bathroom to take a shower.  I had a radio in there that I used to listen to while I showered.  Instead of the normal morning radio show, the mayor of San Diego was on the radio, talking about city services would be shut down for the day and that police are now on high alert.  I thought to myself, “Umm, what’s going on?”

So I turned the radio off and went back into my bedroom and flipped on the TV.  I turned to the Today show and they just had a camera fixated on lower Manhattan where the towers used to be.  There was smoke billowing up, but that was all that was left.

Working for a defense contractor, we had several employees at the Pentagon that day; in fact one of our offices is not far from the Pentagon.  Once I had heard the Pentagon was also hit, I immediately called my boss (who lives here in San Diego) to see if everyone was okay.  Everyone at our office was accounted for, but we couldn’t reach the people we had at the Pentagon.  It wasn’t until several very tense hours later that we finally got an email that all our employees were safe.

I was just glued to the TV for the rest of the day.  School was canceled for the rest of the week, so I just sat there, watching everything, absorbing it, trying to find some kind of rational reasoning for all this.  I never found one.

We had just gotten back a few days prior from my uncle’s wedding in Minnesota.  So all the different scenarios started flying through my head.  What if our plane got hijacked?  What if we got stranded in Minnesota (or some other airport)?  Of course though, I stopped myself because I knew I was safe and that my family was all okay; we were one of many lucky families that were far enough away to be directly affected.

But for those families that have been ripped apart, the families of the passengers, the families of the workers in the buildings, the firefighters and police, my heart goes out to you.  I can only imagine the pain brought on by what happened only seven years ago …

Minnesota Trip

January 7th, 2007

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As you may have already read, in early November, our entire family came together in Minnesota to attend my Uncle Jamie’s funeral. It was quite the trip, and one I was glad I could make to pay my last respects and help support my family.

I flew out with my brother and sister-in-law and my niece Keira on Wednesday, November 1. We left San Diego around 6:30AM, had a layover in Phoenix, and got to Minneapolis around 3:30PM (Central Time). We got our rental car, checked into the hotel, changed, and headed to the memorial.

When we arrived at the memorial, I was absolutely blown away. The best way I could describe the scene is basically it was like people were lined up for a ride at a theme park. There people were lined up all around the mortuary. There was even a rope line set up that people in line would work their way through to see the family and to pay their respects. People were waiting for over an hour at times just to see the family. I have never seen that kind of community outpouring. It was extremely touching to see so much support and so many people there for Jamie.

On Thursday was his actual funeral. It was held at a local church and it was a wonderful ceremony and celebration of Jamie’s life. His brother gave a touching reflection of Jamie’s life. There was a slideshow that he had put together that was very moving. There was one part of the slideshow where a picture of Jamie then faded into a video from the same moment and it just came alive. The entire church lost it at that point, myself included.

After the funeral, the local VFW held a 21-Gun Salute in the parking lot of the church. It was a very somber and touching moment as well.

From there we headed to the local VFW post and had a great BBQ lunch. After lunch we headed back to my aunt Sheila’s and just hung out and kept her company throughout the night. From there we headed back to the hotel and crashed again.

Friday the family came together again down at Sheila’s to help her around the house. We cleaned out the garage and moved things around and basically got the house ready for winter. We actually had a good time getting everything together and done. With about 8 guys working, we were able to get things done rather quickly.

We got the whole family together for a big group photo in front of Jamie’s bar as we figured it would be quite a while before the whole family is together again. Not to mention the fact that Sheila is selling the bar, so it won’t be Jamie’s Pemberton Pub anymore. Because we knew it would be one of the last times we’d be at the bar, Mary and I went back that night to spend some time in the bar.

We left the bar and headed up to the hotel. The next morning, we got together one last time down at Sheila’s to say good bye. We then headed up to the airport and came home. Obviously we made it home safe and sound. ;)

In spite of the circumstances, it was really great to see the family again and spend some time with them. Another benefit that came from the trip was that since I flew with Michael and Gaile, and stayed in their hotel room, I was able to get some quality bonding time with Keira. It was such a great feeling to be able to play with her and make her laugh and just have a good time with her. I love that kid.

So there you go, that was our trip to Minnesota. Be sure to read on of my earlier posts for my tribute to Jamie.

I’ve also posted some photos taken by Michael and Gaile during the trip. Be sure to check them out in the Minnesota 2006 Photo Album.

In Loving Memory: Stephan “Jamie” Jamieson

November 9th, 2006

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On October 12, my mom informed me that my uncle Jamie was diagnosed with Stage 4 Lung Cancer. She said that even with him being in such an advanced stage, he was still going to fight it. They promptly began chemotherapy, unfortunately though, his body was too weak and they had to stop the chemo halfway through. On Thursday, October 26, his oldest daughter (my cousin) Danika gave birth to their first grandchild. Jamie was taken to the hospital and was able to see his new granddaughter. Jamie was taken back home on Saturday, October 28 because he felt he would be more comfortable at home. Just the following night after he returned home, he lost his fight with cancer and passed away Sunday evening, October 29. As quickly as he lost the fight, he never gave up. In spite of all the odds, he kept fighting and wanted to beat it. Unfortunately for all of us though, God had a different plan. I will be honest, I wasn’t extremely close to Jamie; I only had seen him and been around him a handful of times. But I remember each and every one of those moments, because that’s the kind of impact he had on everyone. Jamie always had a big smile, and an even bigger heart. He loved to laugh and lived to make anyone and everyone else laugh. He was a caring, loving and wonderful father which his three children absolutely adored. He also had a wonderfully loving relationship with his wife, my aunt, Sheila. He touched so many lives and he was loved by many, and it showed. At his memorial, people from all over arrived to pay their respects to the family. The memorial was to go from 4:00PM – 8:00PM, but it ended up lasting another hour. There was a steady stream of people for 5 hours. At times there was over an hour-long wait just to visit with the family. I was absolutely blown away with how many people were touched so profoundly by Jamie, that they took the time to come pay their respects. The funeral was no different. It was held in a rather large church, and it was packed. The local school even provided a bus for those students wanting to attend the funeral, and that bus was packed as well. As difficult and sad a time it was when we were back there, it was also very uplifting to see just how big of a positive impact one person can have on others’ lives. A great man was taken from this world entirely too soon, and I pray for his family to get through such a difficult time together. The obituary for Jamie is below.

Stephan “Jamie” Jamieson, age 61 died Sunday, October 29, 2006 at his Pemberton home. Memorial service will be held 11:00 a.m. Thursday, November 2, 2006 at Hosanna Lutheran Church with Rev. Steve Kosberg officiating. Visitation will be from 4-8 p.m. Wednesday at Mankato Mortuary and one hour prior to the service at the church on Thursday. Stephan Jon Jamieson was born July 24, 1945 in St. James to Harold Jon and LaVern Mae (Jensen) Jamieson. He was a 1963 graduate of St. James High School and graduated from Mankato Vocational School. From 1963 to 1970, he served in the US Air Force and was trained at Lackland AFB in TX, and was stationed at Minot AFB in ND and Hickam AFB in HI. On December 27, 1980, he married Sheila M. Tierney in San Diego, CA. Jamie worked for Goldfines and Stadium Pizza in Mankato prior to his sales manager employment with AAMCO Transmissions in San Diego, CA. Returning to Minnesota, Jamie owned and operated “Jamie’s Pemberton Pub” from August 1, 1983 until his death. Jamie enjoyed golf, pool, casino trips, traveling, and spending time with his family. Survivors include his wife, Sheila Jamieson of Pemberton; three children, Danika Jamieson and Daniel Wilmes of Mankato, Megan Jamieson of Mankato, and Jon Jamieson of Pemberton; granddaughter, Kadence Jamie Wilmes; four sisters, Roberta (Jerry) Nelson of St. James, Michelle (Jamie) Walt of Colorado Springs, CO, Linda Terrell of North Mankato, Joni (Jim) Spenger of Mankato; brother, Mike Jamieson of Minneapolis; four sisters-in-law, Maretta (Craig) Clauson and Pat (Mike) Crean all of San Diego, CA, Colleen (Dan) Barta of Grand Forks, ND, Kelly (Steve) Mondloch of Grapevine, TX; brother-in-law and best friend ever, Dan (Pat) Tierney of Brooklyn Park, mother-in-law, Margie Tierney of San Diego, CA; many nieces, nephews, cousins, and friends, including the Laughlin Golf Group. Jamie was preceded in death by his parents, father-in-law, James Tierney, and two brothers-in-law, Larry Terrell and Jim Tierney, Jr.

Thanks for all the memories, Jamie. You’ll be missed greatly.

Reflection and Remembrance

September 11th, 2006

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I’ve shut down all parts of my site in memory of those who perished five years ago today. Please take the time to spend some time reflecting on those events, and even read some of the first-hand accounts available on the web.

This fire stuff …

October 27th, 2003

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… is just plain CRAZY!! I don’t like it … Today was one hellish day of worrying and stressing, I don’t think I could handle another one. I really really really REALLY hope the firefighters get a good handle on the fire overnight because I don’t want it to spready westward out of Poway. Too many houses in the way, mine included, and those of people I know and love; family included.

So tonight I’m just praying for those in immediate danger and for those who have lost it all. I can only imagine what they’re going through tonight and I pray I will never have to know.

I’ll be posting more througout the day tomorrow. What a way to start logging again, huh? Crazy stuff …