Grab a Mai Tai, Let's Do This Island Style!

Whether it's spending time at the dog beach with Ruby and Basil, watching football on Sunday or playing a competitive game of air hockey, we are having a blast together. Our friends said they knew we'd click from the start, so let's go there. We met at a Christmas party in college. Shannon jumped out in a Christmas sweater and Santa hat to talk to me, and if you know me, you know I didn't dress up. Highly likely I was wearing a black shirt. After talking for a few hours, we went our separate ways. As Shannon left, she told me to text her. How was I supposed to text her without her number? She smiled and put her number in my phone. We texted and tried to hang out, but Shannon said she was busy with finals. So, fast forward a month and I sent her a text that read, "Are you done with finals?" That beauty of a text led to us going bowling for our first date. Shannon was so nervous that she forgot her wallet and license (and her bowling skills, but that's been debated). Beyond my heart, Shannon stole Ruby's. Shannon went as far as changing her name to Ruby Temple at the vet as they hiked daily, went to class, and even went to the Downer together. After living together in the Evergreen guest house during COVID with Shannon's parents, Mike and MaryLynn, we moved to a duplex in Denver. For two years, we made that house our own. We re-painted the inside of the house from an awful mustard color to a royal blue. We added Basil to our family and added tennis ball shaped mud stains to those walls. Now, we're in San Diego while Shannon is attending California Western School of Law. We're loving our life filled with beach time, outdoor fires and movies, trips to the fish market, and exploring our new neighborhood!

A week after the move from Denver to San Diego, the ring was burning a hole in my pocket. In the two days before moving, I asked both Mike and MaryLynn for their approval as a formal step. While Shannon and MaryLynn were in San Diego for her Law School orientation, I drove up to grab a few of our things from Evergreen. Mike said he'd grill steaks for when I got there. While he was tending to the grill, we were talking about the move and our life. I showed him the ring and asked to marry his daughter. I got a resounding yes! Next up was MaryLynn. I wanted to ask MaryLynn in person, but my one chance was at the airport with Shannon there. The two of them flew back from orientation the day before we moved. I made up an excuse for why I had to go back to MaryLynn's car. Turns out we had the perfect excuse to keep Shannon in the dark because MaryLynn had about two inches of rainwater in her Jeep that we had to drain. The plug was stuck, but we got it fixed. And, most importantly, I got another resounding yes! There are a few other things you need to know before we get into the actual proposal. First, Shannon and I went to dinner one night in Ocean Beach right after moving to San Diego. We talked with our server about things to do in the area. He said he had a secret spot where the sunsets were unmatched! So, a plan started to form in my head. The next steps of my foolproof plan were to make sure Shannon had a manicure and wore nice clothes when I popped the question. Before going to her first day of Law School, I suggested to Shannon that we get mani-pedis. One problem. The woman on the phone told me we could only do manicures or pedicures. They didn't have time for both. I stumbled over my words telling Shannon some reason why we had to do manicures instead of pedicures when she heard the news about having to choose. We scraped by another day with my plan going right on schedule. Shannon and I decided to plan a date night, which is a weekly activity for us. We planned to go to our new favorite neighborhood restaurant after watching the sunset at the secret spot our waiter told us about. Ok, now we're at the day. September 1st. I'm texting our friends about how nervous I am and being far too secretive. To make sure Shannon was wearing nice clothes, I told her we were going straight from sunset to dinner. After finding parking, we used a rope to climb down to the beach at Sunset Cliffs. That's where I knelt down and asked her to marry me for about the 1000th time in our relationship. This time was important, because this time I had a ring! Kai was secretly taking pictures of the proposal from the cliffside with Aubry and Desmond. The five of us had a quick celebration with flowers and champagne before we headed to our first dinner as an engaged couple!