We met at our church youth group in high school. He was the dork, she was the homeschooler. She disliked him and he was intimidated by her. Fast forward to college and we started talking and getting to know each other. March 21, 2004 started this journey of a relationship and here we are 15 years later, through ups and downs, and we are both grown up and ready for life together.

Melissa is very hard to surprise. She has a knack for figuring out things that are happening around her even without prior knowledge. So planning a proposal surprise is hard. I had to get creative. We were out shopping that day, and had not had lunch yet. I came up with some reason that I had to go back to my apartment. It was a thin excuse but worked somehow. On the way back to my apartment, of course there was construction traffic. Even the Saginaw Trains even made an appearance. By the time we got to my parking lot we were, dare I say, hangry. I ran upstairs to my apartment. I had purchased a large arangement of roses and flowers and many candles for this purpose. I lit all the candles, and then called Melissa, who was in the running car, and said “I’m okay, but I dropped a glass of water and I cut my hand bad. Can you come up and look at it to see if we need to go to the emergency room?” She comes up and I open the door. Watching her face move between emotions of concern, worry, confusion, and excitement was a pleasure to see. I apologized for lying, and repented right then and there. I got down on one knee. She said yes when I asked, then I gave her some applesauce to bring her blood sugar back up. We did eventually go to dinner. :)