We're Getting Married (again)

It was a pretty normal night in Normal. The Cornbelters were playing a game and I had pitched the night before so I was essentially a cheerleader during the game. A few innings in, I happened to glance in the stands and about 15 rows above our dugout in a black tank top with a plain black hat with long blonde hair and the most gorgeous smile I'd ever seen, I saw her. Something about her struck me like no girl ever had before. Later in the game, she won the stadium dance off for the "Beer Nuts Nut of the Game". I watched the whole thing as she showed off her white girl dance moves on the jumbotron with no shame. I knew I had to meet her. The guys in the dugout convinced me to write my name and number on a baseball and give it to her. An age old baseball player pick up trick that I had never had the guts to try. After some back and forth, I finally decided to just go for it. "#11 on the field, but #1 in your heart? -Michael" were the magic words. Only fitting to write something so corny at the Corn Crib, right? I got one of our video guys to take the ball to her and my teammates watched as her and her friends died laughing at the ball. I was so embarrassed I could barely come out of the dugout to see her reaction. Turns out, it went over well--that night, I got a text from Amy. We met up with friends at a local bar a couple of weeks later and, as they say, the rest is history.

We had this trip planned for quite a while. We were going from Texas to Colorado to see Michael's family and then on to the east coast for a trip with Michael's parents. Michael had planned the proposal for the first day of the trip. The plan was to drive up to Red Rocks—a natural red rock amphitheater in the foothills of Colorado and one of the most famous concert venues in the country—in the morning with Michael’s sister for brunch and then to go check out the venue afterwards. Michael had already scouted out the spot in the theater for the proposal on a previous trip to Colorado. That morning, everything was going according to plan until nothing went according to plan. At brunch, a tray of mimosas was spilled all over Amy’s dress and Michael’s white shirt—not a great start. On the walk up to the venue, Amy got dizzy from the altitude and Julia (Michael’s sister and the one with the really nice camera to capture the moment) couldn’t get her camera to turn on. When we got in the park, we sat down to let Amy catch her breath and to stall for Julia to troubleshoot the camera. The theater is supposed to be open to the public until 2pm but at 11:45am, an announcement was made that it was closing in 15 minutes. It was go time. Julia fixed her camera and Amy caught her breath. And Michael asked Amy to marry him in front of his sisters and a bunch of other random spectators in the theater. Amy of course said yes and in the end, I guess that was really the only thing that needed to go according to plan.