We were working at Aquarium of the Bay for awhile but didn’t actually meet until the Christmas Party. The night started with both of us scoring some extra drink tickets for the bar. He overheard me being dramatic about losing my raffle ticket, and oh so graciously offered to sell me his. As I’m rolling my eyes and laughing it off, they call out a number and of course... it’s his ticket! He couldn’t pass up the opportunity to tease me on missing out. He ended up winning a pair of tickets to Great America, which he offered to me at the end of the party. I accepted, on the condition that he would go with me. It took a couple of months until he asked for my number...twice (he lost it the first time) but now I can't imagine my life without him. Oh, and we never went to Great America.

I finally found the person I wanted to spend the rest of my life with, now I needed to find a place to ask her if she had too. So after deciding to ask her at Niagara Falls and booking a room with a falls view, the perfect location presented itself... the top of the Golden Gate Bridge! While sitting at home one night, about a week after booking our stay at the falls, we were sent pictures of some family members on top of the Golden Gate Bridge on a special tour my uncle took them on. Seeing how much Valerie wanted to go up there too, I knew this was the place and the falls were out. I talked to my uncle soon after and we set up a day to go. Luckily, when the day arrived, the weather was great. After picking Valerie up from a street fair she was attending in the city, we headed to the bridge for the tour, that as far as she knew, was arranged for her birthday. We met my uncle at the bridge and he took us to the base of the North Tower (the Sausalito side). We went inside, put on our hard hats, and the 3 of us rode to the top of the tower in a tiny, slow moving elevator that was probably made to fit just one. We made it to the top and emerged into one of the most breathtaking landscapes around. It was so much more spectacular than we were expecting. As we were up there, captivated by the view, internally I was soooo nervous. Not because of the question I was about to ask ( I knew she was the one, I was excited to ask), but about somehow dropping the ring off the tower into the traffic below, or worse yet, the Pacific Ocean. I managed to calm my nerves long enough to find a safe spot to get on one knee and ask her to marry me. She managed to say yes through a river of tears and I CAREFULLY put the ring on her finger. Everything that day was perfect and we will cherish the memories forever. My uncle being the one to set this all up and accompanying us up there made it just that much more special...it would not have been the same without him.