It's Happening!

One of our mutual friends had organized an event to have a bunch of friends gather at a karaoke bar to celebrate his birthday. Through later conversations, we both learned that neither of us were really feeling up to going out and celebrating that night, but decided to pull ourselves together. The idea from our friend was that attendees would get all dressed up and fill this small pho restaurant in Tempe, Arizona with some very snazzy looking people. We both got ready at our respective places and drove to the restaurant. Spoiler alert: Neither of us are really into karaoke. We met on the outside patio after Amber walked out with a drink. It seemed as though we both knew that the other was having a hard day and struck up a conversation. We ended up talking for the entire rest of the night before the celebration wound down. After this chance meeting, we later discovered that we continued to attend these singing get togethers hoping to possibly run into each other again (Remember when we spoiled that neither of us were karaoke enthusiasts?). Eventually, we did run into each other again at one of these meet ups, exchanged numbers and that's where it took off.

We had talked about getting engaged for some time. Unfortunately, a global pandemic seemed to get in the way for a little while, throwing us some curveballs along with it. We had a water leak in our home, which triggered a complete remodel of our kitchen. Let us tell you, washing dishes by hand for 2 years without a dishwasher is no fun. I don't think we will ever take that for granted again! The day of the proposal seemed like any other day, staying in place and just waiting for the evening to spend some time together. Peter seemed to be upstairs in his office working much more than usual, but I found out later that he was avoiding me due to nerves. The doorbell rang. I opened it to find a large bouquet of red roses sitting on our front porch step and was thrilled with the surprise. An early Christmas present? I didn't know. I took the bouquet into our kitchen and placed it on the temporary counter tops we had made with melamine and carpentry clamps. Peter raced downstairs, asking me to read the card. I thought this was strange and opened it to read this message out loud: "If we ever fail to meet your expectations, please let us know. We value you as a customer..." ... what? After shooting him a confused look and Peter explaining to me that, no, that was in fact not the message that I was meant to read. After looking at the remainder of the card, it turns out that the florist had folded and printed the card backwards, so the true message was printed on the back. I looked down after reading it to see Peter on one knee with my ring. He didn't even have to ask, but did anyway. It was the best yes I think I have ever given.