The Rest of the Story...

Hello everybody! My name is Aaron and I will be your guest blogger today! Aren’t you all so excited?
So my task here is to help you all understand how Amanda and I really got engaged. Even her side of the story shows that it wasn’t clean cut, but let me tell you just how much struggle and effort went into this momentous occasion. Get ready. This is long. But it’s good.
Amanda and I spent my entire Christmas break together. It was phenomenal. Her family rocks. My family loves her. (Well, Mom and Dad do anyway. We haven’t yet made our way to Utah to introduce her to my siblings.) We talked about the future and everything was right. Her requirements were that I propose in a unique, romantic, and memorable way. I began to formulate a plan.
My original plan was pretty good, I must say. During Christmas vacation I went to Amanda’s office a few times, and I took that opportunity to glean some of her coworkers’ contact info from her cubicle walls and email it to myself. I thought I was being pretty sly. I was going to contact one of her friends in the office (Jodi, if you’re reading this, that’s you) and have her arrange for Amanda’s boss to plan a high-stress and oppressively busy week leading up to the day I would propose. Then I was going to have her roommate (Myriah, this is your shout out) take her out to this Argentine restaurant at the end of that week “to let her relax and relieve stress”. I would have been there waiting and it would have been great, “would have” being the operative term here.
As Amanda already told everyone, she spent ten days in Guatemala translating for docs and dentists with the Rotary Club. (By the way, Amanda will play that down like it’s no big deal. Don’t let her fool you. She helped save lives and that’s the simple truth. So next time you guys see her, let her know she’s kind of a big deal, please, because she won’t believe me no matter how much I tell her.) Knowing that our ability to communicate would be limited, the night before she left I typed up ten short letters to email her so she would have some kind of communication from me every day. As I wrote, I thought to myself, “Hmm. It would be neat if I already had a ring and could surprise her when she gets back. Too bad I haven’t gotten a ring yet…” So I sent the letters and went to bed, still planning to propose a few weeks from that point.
I got up the next morning and had a minute to talk to Amanda while she was on a layover in Houston. It was a short chat as I had to get to class, and when I hung up it hit me. It was time to ditch the old plan and make the seemingly unattainable one, the one that had crossed my mind the night before, happen.
I made some phone calls later that day and put things in motion to get a ring the day before she got back. I also rushed up some paperwork to get leave the next weekend. I notified one of my instructors that I would need to leave class early the next Friday to catch a flight. He was gracious enough to grant a hopeless romantic’s pitiful request.
The ring came that next Thursday. (Not sure if Rene will ever read this, but thanks! And if any of you gentlemen reading this are looking to purchase an engagement ring, I know a guy, and he is good.) Friday rolled around and the only thing I remember about class that day was having to badger my fellow cadet with questions during his campaign brief so my teacher would let me out like ten minutes into class.
I got out and I sprinted to my room to change out of uniform. I had already packed my bags, so I just grabbed my bag and sprinted down to my car in the cadet lots. Then I proceeded to make my way to Denver International Airport. That generally takes about an hour and twenty minutes. I got from the parking lot at school to the elevator to the terminal in fifty. Yes! I would be getting to O’Hare forty-five minutes before Amanda, and I would have plenty of time to prep a few bystanders to man a camera and let everyone at her gate know to expect some magic when her plane arrives!
I got there with plenty of time to spare and the plane was leaving on time. All was well. We got on and the captain said we would be a little late because of baggage issues but it would be no big deal since the winds would still get us there on time. I took a moment to call Amanda, taking the risk that she would hear the noise of everyone boarding my plane and get suspicious. She didn’t hear, but I decided to show my cards a little bit. That’s when I told her, “I’ll see you soon” rather than, “I’ll talk to you soon.”
We start taxiing out to the runway. We are next in line and the plane starts to move. Relief floods my veins, but only for a moment. Then I notice we are heading back to the terminal, and the pilot gets on the intercom to tell us they put the wrong cargo on the plane and would have to change it! No! Now what was I supposed to do from my seat on this cursed aircraft to keep in control of the situation? I had to think fast!
I called and texted Myriah (the captain had let everyone turn their phones on again, but he didn’t know that I turned mine on long before he said anything) frantically to get Becky’s number. (Becky was the friend with whom Amanda was travelling.) I texted Becky and asked her to have her camera ready to record but not to tell Amanda she had gotten a text from me. I thought a bit and decided I would need to tip all my cards and sent Amanda a message telling her to stay at her gate.
Generally I sleep on airplanes, but this time I sat in my seat clutching the ring in its box and thinking how I was going to ensure this would still go off perfectly. I talked to the stewardess to find out which gate we would be ours. Twenty-three. Amanda’s flight was coming into eleven, so I thought. I checked the terminal map in the back of the airline’s magazine, and it didn’t look like it would be too hard to make it. When we got to the gate, there were a few people ushered to the front so they could make connecting flights. I thought about trying to sneak in with them, but I didn’t want to draw too much attention or play the pity card. Fortunately, the man next to me had overheard my conversation with the stewardess, and he told everyone around us that I needed to get off the plane ASAP to go propose. I got off the plane and sprinted, again, to C11.
I got to C11, threw my bag up on the counter, and asked the clerk in exasperation, “Has the flight from Houston gotten in yet?”
“The flight from Houston?
“Yes. Flight 223 from Houston.”
He looked at me like I had three eyes and said, “We don’t have anything coming here from Houston.
I looked up and realized this was a United gate. Amanda’s flight was on Continental operated by United. I asked, “Where are the Continental gates?”
“Concourse B.”
“How do I get there?”
“Go back to C18, turn right, go down the escalators to the long path, then up the escalators, and take another right.”
“Got it. Thanks!” And I was off again.
Nearly a quarter mile of sprinting later I get to the Continental gates. I can’t find Amanda’s flight on the screens, so I ask one of the clerks, “Is flight 223 from Houston here yet?” This was a pretty hopeless request seeing as there was virtually nobody at any of the Continental gates at the time and Amanda’s flight would have been just unloading at that time by my estimation. The clerk then told me she would look it up. Her helpful reply came just as I got a call from Amanda.
I asked Amanda where she was and she replied in unison with the clerk, ‘Gate C9.” “Wait there,” I told Amanda, and I resumed my crazed dash to find my soon-to-be fiancé.
I finally got back to basically where I had begun. (I would say it was less than five minutes. I wasn’t keeping track, but other accounts of this story which estimate the time between our phone call and our reunion to be five minutes make me look like I was tired and moving slowly.) Finally, with heavy breathes, I gave Amanda a sweaty and exhausted hug. (OK maybe I was tired, but there is no way it took me five minutes to get from concourse B to concourse C.) She suggested we get moving since Becky’s friend was waiting on us, but I told her I had something to do first. So I got down on one knee and asked her to marry me. She said yes. I hugged her again.
You may be wondering why I started another paragraph without saying anything about putting the ring on her finger or kissing her. I have some confessing to do… Despite all the times I rehearsed this moment on the plane ride over, I totally blew it! I suppose I still hadn’t quite calmed down from my flustered and panicked state, and as I got up I just closed the ring box and put it in my pocket. Becky said, “I think you guys are supposed to kiss now.” So we did. Then I noticed Amanda looking at my pocket. I quickly realized the mistake I had made, and I dealt with the situation rather smoothly. I believe I said something really witty like, “Oh. I suppose you probably want this, huh?” as I reached into my pocket for the ring. Man, I’m good!
So there it is. That’s how Amanda and I got engaged. The long version. I hope everyone enjoyed laughing at me as you conjured up images of my comical and frantic journey from Denver to Chicago to secure a life with the most beautiful and capable woman to be found on this great earth. I look forward to meeting many of you at our wedding in May!

{P.S. This is now Amanda! The Sunday after we got engaged, we saw this sign downtown and obviously had to stop for a pic.}