It’s (finally) happening!

Nathan and I met at our workplace at the time, Tokyo Japanese Steakhouse & Sushi Bar. Ahhhh, we were just youngsters serving sushi and sake for a living, going to school by day and frequenting bars & musical shows by night. I remember the first formal date Nathan asked me on...a concert of a band I did not know of at the time. Because I was not familiar with the music, I declined. After that, were friends for quite a while before we decided to become a couple -- I think about 2 years! He was patient with me and for that I am very grateful.

Oh, the proposal. Everyone asks...when is he going the pop question? IS he going to pop the question? Are you guys getting married, or what?! Keep in mind that by the time we are married, we will have been together as an official couple for almost 10 years. I am not going to lie...I had some excuses like, "I want/need to graduate first," to "I need to finish graduate school," to "do we really NEED to get married?" I am sure this somewhat deterred Nathan, however, he clearly had a master plan. May 2019 I finished graduate school and received my Doctoral degree in Audiology -- an accomplishment I was very proud of and which called for a BIG celebration with the WHOLE fam. We decided that the whole family was going to head out to Vegas to celebrate! June 2019 kicked off mine and Nate's travels and the first stop was VEGAS, BABY. There were some hiccups before the fun started. Nathan's parents were busy at the time of travel and couldn't make it. Come time to catch the flights, my immediate family missed theirs and arrived much later than they had planned on (not to mention, had their fair share of airport drinks to pass the time). Nevertheless, we all made it and the first night we were there was a big welcome dinner my mom had planned AND it was the night THE PROPOSAL was going to happen. I was oblivious the whole time...

When we arrived, my Mom made sure to sit Nathan and I in the center of the table setting. I thought of this as kind of strange but also just brushed it off, considering, well...we were celebrating me after all. Everyone had dinner (which was very good) and we were finishing up drinks and closing tickets; that's when Mom got a little weird... Anyone who knows my mom knows that she is a talker and that she is very social -- more so after a couple of drinks (recall the airport situation from Part I). As we're finishing up, she stands and starts to give a speech of sorts. Now, this was supposed to be a quick segue for Nathan to jump in and pop the question. However, it turned into about a 10 minute off-the-cuff toast reminiscent of an Oscars speech where they queue the music in the middle of the "thank yous." People were very confused, including Nathan and myself. I am still oblivious and Nathan is wondering whether he will get a chance to actually ask the question! Finally, she wraps it up and passes the attention to Nathan. At this point, Nate (I call him Nate) stands up to start speaking and I immediately tap into what's happening (OMG, is this really happening?!). He proceeds to give a very thoughtful and heartfelt speech that ends with him on one knee in front of my whole family asking the question, "Will you be my wife?" He pulled out a ring but I didn't even see it until after because I could not help but look directly into his eyes and proclaim, "YES!" :)