It's really happening.....

It was my birthday and my girlfriends and I decided to spend it at Excalibur Night Club in down town Chicago (It was after all Latin Night). The dance studio we were taking classes at Latin Street had gotten us a table and bottle service for my birthday. I spotted Jorge Alvarez, my mambo instructor and decided to ask him to dance. As we were approaching the dance floor, his girlfriend Imelda walked through the door and Jorge asked me if he could dance her first dance with her first; before I could say anything he said "here, dance with my buddy Dean, he is a great dancer" and placed my hand on Dean's hand. We danced several times throughout the night and closed the club down. As I was walking out of the club with my girlfriends, I realized I was still wearing my dance shoes. I was really struggling to take them off (they have these tiny buckles you know) when Dean appeared out of nowhere, dropped to one knee, unbuckled my shoes and helped me into my street shoes, my very own cinderella moment. A number of us decided to go to Eggsperience for breakfast; it was 4a.m. after all and Dean asked if he could join us. He sat next to me and we talked the entire time. As we were saying our goodbyes, he gave me a big hug and his business card. He invited us to a dance social hosted by the Bachata All Stars the following weekend....

Dalila and I planned a trip to visit her parents in Yuma Arizona. I wanted to propose while visiting her parents so we could share the special moment with them. While there, we took on a landscaping project that was on hold by her parents for some time. We wanted to surprise them by doing it for them. It was a pretty big project so it took us 3 days to finish. It was a lot of work in the Yuma heat... over 100F during the day. While doing the project, we’d take breaks under the family tree to take advantage of the shade. We’d lie down facing up into the tree and have life conversations. I got the idea to propose to her there while having one of our life conversations. I thought of tying the engagement ring to one of the hanging branches using thread so that it would hang directly above our usual lying down spot. At that point, I asked to speak with her dad to get his blessing on the proposal. I got his blessing and Project, “Hang the ring started”. :) Dalila and I were once again working on the landscaping & decided to take a break. I made sure to position her where the ring would be right above her head. As we were talking, she yells out “OMG there’s a spider… Kill it!!” She had decided to take her glasses off when we laid down and since she is blind without her glasses, what she thought was a spider was the engagement ring, hahaha. I started to laugh and I told her to put her glasses on and that is when she saw the ring & she started to cry. I grabbed the ring and asked her to be my wife. Even though we were sweaty and had dirt all over, it was a special moment for me because the proposal was done while doing something that was helping her parents. It was symbolic of one of the things marriage is about… coming together to help our families. Funny note…. Her father was so excited when I asked him for his blessing to ask Dalila to marry me that he ran into the house and told Dalila and her mom that I had just asked for his blessing to propose. Whomp whomp, lol :)