A alluded to this in my earlier post, but now I can happily share the news that Bethany and I are engaged!

Thank you to all of my friends and family who have sent their congratulations, blessings and well-wishes through the various communication methods.  Many have asked “how did it happen?  How did you pop the question?”  Here is the story:

March 19th has been in the works for weeks, as it was the easiest day to keep under wraps.  This date coincided with the date that I was to get my new phone.  Given my frustration with the Treo 700w, it was easy to channel the excitement about the engagement to get the new phone.  It also enabled me to count down the days in plain sight – I am geeky enough that Bethany bought into my excitement over the phone.  Two months ago I was actually counting down the time I could trash the Treo, but a few weeks ago that shifted to the engagement.

Wednesday morning Bethany received a delivery of flowers, with the message “Today is THE DAY – the wait IS OVER!”  She knew the big question was coming, and at that point had her suspicions about the motive of the flowers. Still, she wouldn’t put it past me to be this excited about finally ridding myself of the Treo and having the new phone.

I later played into her doubt when I met her after work and we went over to the Verizon store to purchase the phone.  She had hoped that if today was the day of the engagement, that I would have already picked up the phone earlier in the day.  We were in the store for about a half-hour, when she asked where I wanted to go to dinner.

“I’m not sure” I said, “how about Outback, or Chili’s?”.  This played into her doubt, leaving her wondering whether I was actually that geeky – to send her flowers over a new phone – after all, and whether she would have to continue to wait for the proposal.  We got in the car and I turned right instead of left at Harmony.  From that point on she knew that we were going up to Horsetooth Reservoir.

There’s a small parking lot which overlooks the Reservoir, at the curve of a large foothill – this is the spot we went on our 3rd date, and where Bethany has taken me on special occasions as well.  We pulled up to the spot and Bethany was pretty certain what was going to happen.  Determined to play out my charade, I stuck to my story about wanting to smash the Treo.  I pull a hammer out of my car, and set the Treo on a wooden post.  I then said I wanted to make the moment special and set up my camera on another post.  A cold breeze was blowing and Bethany was a little cold. I gave her my coat, which had the ring in the front pocket.  I set the timer on the camera, approached Bethany and got down on one knee…

I pulled the ring out of the pocket and asked her to marry me… and she said “YES!”

Obviously a wedding date depends on a lot of different factors.  We know the church we want, as well as the Priest we’d like to celebrate the Mass, so it all depends on their availability, but we’re shooting for mid-May/early June 2009.  Mark your calendars!

Check out the rest of the proposal photos on Flickr.