We were neighbors in our dorm hall during freshmen year. We have been friends ever since. Long, long after college, we began to look at each other in a different light.

We went camping one weekend. I had a feeling Jake was up to something as he'd been overly accommodating the whole week. I told my friend from work "I think he might propose this weekend, but don't tell anyone I said that because it will be so embarrassing if I'm wrong". Before we left for Manistee on Friday, I decided to curl my whole head of hair just in case I was right. When I finally said I was ready to head out and Jake didn't say anything at all about me wasting an hour of time to curl my hair just to go camping, I was pretty sure my inkling was correct. Jake caught me off guard by proposing on a secluded beach the next morning. I said yes and was so excited to share the news with Sprout, our prodigal son/cat. The next day when we returned to our house in Grand Rapids, Jake said his parents wanted to celebrate by taking them out to lunch at their regular spot, Woody's. We arrived at Woody's only to find our entire family, many of our closest friends, and even my brother and sister-in-law, and cousin who had flown in from California. There was an abundance of tears, mostly from me.