dunya wrote: ↑Mon Mar 07, 2022 11:47 am
how do you drink your coffee?
what's your least favorite chore to do?
how long have you been married/how did you meet your wife/how did you propose
thanks for being awesome!
1) I don't.
2) Washing the floors. I've got the elbow grease required to give it a thorough clean, but it's murder on my knees.
3a) My wife and I got married in July of 2008, so we're coming up on our 14th anniversary this summer. It feels weird to put that large a number to it, because married life with only one kid feels like a lifetime ago, married life without kids feels like an eternity ago, and life before we were married feels like it never existed.
3b) I first met my wife when her father was appointed to be the pastor at our church. She is a year and a half older than me, so she was actually friends with my sister first, and hung out with her circle of friends. The first time I truly met her in a meaningful way was when she bounced up to me after church one day to say hi after she found out that I was enrolling at the college she was attending. She promised my sister to keep an eye on me around campus.
3c) This is a fun story! My wife didn't want just the standard proposal over dinner or in a park, so she made me promise her that I would propose to her in a way that gave her a unique story to share. I decided to give her more than just a story- I was going to capture the proposal in a picture.
My first thought was to come up to her apartment for a weekend, but surprise her early at her classroom after the kids had left for the day. I thought I could tell her we should snap a picture together with my digital camera's timer and I'd pop the question as the camera went off. The logistics proved to be too tricky, as I couldn't guarantee the perfect angle, timing, or even a good looking picture given all the stuff my wife had in her classroom.
My next thought was to propose in a place where they take your picture. My wife taught in a town called Palmyra, Pennsylvania at the time, which is right next to Hershey, PA- home of the original Hershey's chocolate factory and home to both Hersehypark and the Hershey's Chocolate World attraction. At Chocolate World, they have a ride you can go on that serves as a fake factory tour that also takes you through the entire process of making a Hershey bar. At the end of the ride, they take your picture.
Having grown up and lived less than an hour from Hershey my whole life, there's very little appeal to riding the Chocolate World ride. My wife had just been there a few years earlier, so I had to lie to her and say that they had recently made changes to the ride. She reluctantly agreed and I guess thought it was at least a cute date. It was mid-April and the night before the proposal, I was back on campus DJ-ing a dance. It was a very chilly night and the forecast for the next day seemed to be cool as well.
The next day, it was 70 degrees and sunny. All I had to hide the ring box was my wool coat, otherwise I would have looked like I had a tumor growing out of my hip. I wasn't about to risk the ring sitting loose in my pocket, so I lied to her again and say that I was feeling a chill so I needed my coat. I was boiling! I tried to sneak on the AC during the car ride to Hershey but she called me out. When we got to Chocolate World, the line for the ride was loooooooooooooooooooooong. I'm sweating bullets by this point.
Maybe 45 minutes later, we're at the front of the line. I had taken my coat off to cool down, but I had my hand discreetly in the pocket to protect the ring box at all times. When we were being ushered to the car for the ride, I was dismayed to see that we weren't going to be alone. Another couple was in the front seat, and we'd be in the back seat. I couldn't do anything about it, so we got in.
The whole way though the ride, my wife is looking around trying to figure out what might possibly be new. Meanwhile, I'm focused ahead looking for the flashes of where they snap your picture. When we finally got to the right spot, I tried my best to get down on one knee and I popped the question.
My wife replied with three words: "Are you serious?"
I told her that I was.
She replied with one word: "Really?"
Finally, while saying yes and waving the open ring box in front of her face, she said yes.
We quickly got the ring securely on her finger so we could get off the ride. We ran up to where you can see your picture from the ride and paid $10 or more for a grainy picture of our big moment. I don't know why I don't have a scan of it handy, but I will post it here once I can get my hands on it.
EDIT: Found it!