The proposal

Because Brandi is a very special girl, I knew I had to ask her to marry me before some other hot person came along and swept her away.  I knew, too, that she was a definite keeper after spending a week stripping my drains and washing me up.  Good thing she's a nurse!

But seriously, she's amazing and I love her terribly, and I'm super fortunate to have her in my life, and so have been planning to surprise her with an engagement ring for a while.  I even kept it at my office so that she couldn't find it and suspect something. I REALLY, REALLY wanted to surprise her.  That was the most important part of my plan.

Brandi's birthday was also on Monday (July 29th) and I knew that sitting at home and watching TV wouldn't be her ideal way to spend her birthday, because her birthday is super exciting and important to her.  Thus, I had to come up with a plan.

The initial plan was to wait until August 1 to propose because our anniversary is on a "1" and we hope to get married on a "1" but I decided that an awesome birthday present and surprise would be to propose on her birthday.

We drove to our favorite place in the cities - Minnehaha Falls - and walked around a bit and looked at the gorgeous rushing falls.  Way more full than they've ever been since we've been going.  Minnehaha Falls was also where I took Brandi on our first date, so it is an extra special place for us.  Since I can't drive, I took her a different route from the way we usually go, so she was quite unsuspecting for a long time about where we were headed.

We finally got there and I (who had kept the ring a secret since bringing it home from work two Fridays ago, amazingly enough, despite being pretty much reliant upon Brandi for everything), leaned up against the wall with the falls behind me and told her, "I have something for you. It is in my pocket." She reached for my right pants pocket, and I said, "Nope, not that pocket;" so she reached for my LEFT pants pocket and I said, "Nope, not that pocket, either."  So she reached into the chest pocket of my button down shirt and pulled it out and, said, "It's my ring!"  So I said, "Will you marry me?" And with tears in her eyes she nodded "yes."

And that is how we spent the morning of Brandi's birthday and the day one week after surgery - getting engaged.