The Proposal

His Version
I had Johna believing that I was out of town on a last-minute business trip. I even made a call the night before telling her I had landed safely and was off to meet work-people for dinner.

The next morning, at 7:45am, I called her and said "Hey, I need you to do me a favor... I need you to go into your closet and pull out the Disney game tin." She was clearly suspicious, put the phone down to get the game. She came back to the phone and said "There's... there's a note inside. What is this? What's going on?!" I told her to "open it and follow the instructions," and then abruptly hung up on her. (Sorry, J.)

The note inside (which was written in rhyme, I might add) told her that I had lied about the trip I was on, but that she had one of her own to take. It told her to look outside for a silver truck, which would be waiting for her shortly. She looked up, saw the truck outside and ran to it.

Inside, was her friend Heidi, who had been in on this for some time now. Heidi handed her a second note, which told her to not bother asking Heidi what was going on, since she wouldn't tell her anyway!

Heidi drove Johna down to docks on Lake Minnetonka in Wayzata, MN. When she arrived, she got out of the car but didn't see me right away. I saw her go back to Heidi's window to grab more Kleenex... apparently she was on to me by this point.

She started to walked down to the docks and finally noticed me. She walked over and I started to explain that I wanted to bring her somewhere that had a lot of meaning. I explained that the area where we were standing was always a place where I came to get away or clear my head. It was also one of the places I couldn't wait to show her when we first started dating. And it was the spot we'd go to many times a year to relax, enjoy a 'bou (Caribou Coffee), and catch up or talk about our future.

I told her that every time I thought about my future, I could never picture it future without her... and I didn't ever want to have to picture it that way. I then got down on one knee and asked her to marry me.

Johna was so excited and filled with tears that she shook her head "yes" as I placed the ring on her finger and gave her a hug. It was about that moment that she managed to stop crying long enough to officially say "Yes. Yes. Yes!"

And that hug was just in time... the three men fishing further down on the dock had been watching this whole thing and gave us a look like they couldn't decide if they should save her from me, or be happy for her.

It wasn't until about 30 minutes later when Johna said "Oh. I forgot to look at the ring." Which was one of my favorite parts of this story... after all the time, effort (worry) and energy I put into finding the perfect one, that moment will always remind me that she said "yes" to me, not to anything I had to offer.