This small series
will be a break from my normal travel writing and blogging. It will attempt to document to the best of my
memory and limited writing skills the run-up to Colleen and I's recent
engagement. I apologize in advance if I
get a little sappy at times. Brent.
The "engagement seed plan" as I like to call was
planted a couple of months before Colleen and I left for vacation in
October. As previously mentioned, I knew
that I had a fairly limited window of time to get the deed done, so I started
brainstorming up ideas as to how I was going to surprise someone who kind of
knew that I was up to something.
Thankfully for my brain I spend a lot of time just sitting on the toilet
with my pants down and not actually using the porcelain fixture for its
intended purpose. I like to think that
it was during one of these bathroom timeouts that I derived my master plan.
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| It's a known fact that all great thinking occurs on the toilet. |
Colleen was scheduled to fly into Ontario a few days before
Jon and Gianina's wedding on October 26th and she would be flying back to
Kamloops, B.C. for a few days after the wedding before returning to our home in
Inuvik. My flight back to Inuvik was already
booked from Toronto on October 30th, so on the 27th we would be going our
separate ways for a few days. Or so she
thought! My plan was to fly out to
Kamloops secretly after Jon's wedding a day after Colleen for one night and catch her by surprise and
pop the question. Simple. Easy. Done. If only!
It's one thing to draft a plan up in your head, but it is an
entirely different animal trying to set the wheels in motion. After devising this grand scheme in my head,
I started looking for places online that were fairly close to where Colleen was
staying in Kamloops as I was only going to be in B.C. for a day or so and
didn't want to spend all my time there driving to and fro. After a few alcohol-fueled internet search
sessions late at night while Colleen was slumbering in the bedroom, I stumbled
upon Quaaout Lodge in Chase, B.C. which is located within an hour of Colleen's
Mom's house. It is a beautiful resort
right on the shores of Shuswap Lake and after a few emails sent back and forth,
the wheels were finally in motion.
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| Looking out over the balcony from Quaaout Lodge onto Shuswap Lake. |
The next step in the plan was figuring out how the hell I
was going to get Colleen out to the resort.
For this I enlisted the help of her childhood friend, Stephanie. Her and Colleen have been BFF's (I believe
that's what the kids call it) for ten years or so. I devised this plan where Stephanie would
tell Colleen that she won a "girls weekend spa getaway" package at
Quaaout Lodge through her employer and that she wanted to take Colleen. Assuming everything ran smoothly, Steph would
bring Colleen out to the resort that day where I would be waiting to pop the
question and give a terribly awkward speech on one knee. It's safe to say that the only thing that was
guaranteed in this plan was my pathetic attempt at an engagement speech.
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| Colleen, Stephanie, and I in Whitehorse this past summer. Unrelated: DO NOT go hiking in jeans! |
In the weeks leading up to the proposal, there were a couple
of close calls where Colleen almost ruined the whole plan. As mentioned, she is borderline impossible to
surprise and I knew I was going to have be stealthy. After researching the resort, I made sure to
delete my internet history so that she would not see what I was up to. Unfortunately, I did not delete my "cookies"
and literally the week I started to get the ball rolling on the plan, Colleen
decides for the first time in her life to use Hotels.com. DAMN YOU KOKANEE BEER FOR FUCKING WITH MY
INTERNET NINJA SKILLS. I'll let you guess what was in the boxes
labeled "Date" and "Destination". FUCK MY LIFE.
At first I was blissfully unaware of any of this until a few days later
when Colleen confronted me at our friend's house on a Friday evening and said something
along the lines of, "I think I might be ruining a big surprise but I was
booking a hotel for my Mom and I and I stumbled across...". I am pretty sure my heart almost burst
through my chest at this moment.
Thankfully, I was not too lubricated at this point in the evening and
was able to quickly think on my feet. I
told Colleen that I had been talking to her friend Stephanie and that she had
won a trip this resort and I was in fact just doing some research on the resort
to see what it was like.
I admit, it was not the greatest excuse, and I am not sure
my lady believed me, but it was all I had!
After feeding Colleen this bullshit excuse, I quickly ran into the
bathroom and called Stephanie to explain how I had almost ruined the plan
before we even got started. Steph agreed
to tell Colleen in a few days about the trip she had "won" and I told
Colleen to act surprised when she did.
Colleen may have thought something was up, but we would definitely be
more careful going forward. Or so I told
myself.Leading up to our trip down south in October I made sure not to mention her "girls getaway" too often and anytime Colleen
When it was finally time to for me to head to Ontario, Colleen and I said our goodbyes, but not before she loaded up my phone with pictures of different rings she liked. Yes, this is what I am dealing with.
Back i Ontario, I enlisted the help of my sister Natalie to
help me go ring shopping. Having talked
to a few people who have been through this process, I will admit that at first
I was extremely nervous. My friend Jon
had told me how he spent weeks and months researching the perfect the ring for
his bride and provided me with various links and websites that he thought I
should submerse myself in. My research
on the other hand consisted of looking at a couple of jeweler's websites the
morning before we went shopping and quickly reading up on the "4 C's"or "5 C's" or whatever the hell it is.
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| Natalie, my Pops, and I. Two not-so expert ring shoppers and one expert beer drinker. |
Now that I had my quick study session done, Natalie and I
headed to the mall and were lucky enough to walk in the door right by the
jewelry store we were looking for. After
a quick explanation to the lady working the counter about what we were looking
for and price range and all that jazz she quickly whipped out some rocks and I
could feel my wallet getting lighter with each word out of her mouth. I also came armed with the plethora of
pictures my girlfriend had provided for me and I could not tell if the lady
working found this cute, disturbing, thorough, or some combination of all
three. After spending maybe 20 minutes
or half an hour with her, we were quite impressed with a couple of the rings
and in fact the first ring she showed my sister and I was the one that we
fancied the most. But alas, Nat and I
felt that we should check out a couple of other diamond retailers, so we did
just that. After seeing a selection of
other rings and nothing really catching our eye, we both deduced that we liked
the first ring and so with that we headed back to the store. I think the lady working was surprised to see
us again so quickly. Needless to say,
Nat and I gazed at the ring a bit more, decided that we liked it and the next
thing I knew I had just completed the single largest credit card transaction of
my 28 year existence. It goes without
saying that the lady working had probably made one of the easier commissions
she was going to have that month.
In the matter of a little over an hour, the entire ring
purchasing process was over. Quick and
painless. Oh, and did I mention that
while Natalie and I were out shopping my girlfriend kept texting me with all of
the requirements that her ring must have.
Lots of little diamonds. White gold. Round or cushion cut diamond. Definitely not square. Lots of little diamonds surrounding a bigger
diamond. But not too big. Blingy, but not gawdy. ARE YOU KIDDING ME WOMAN!?!?! I was just
praying that Colleen would ~Brentski~
Next time: Panic at
the airport and a last second change of plans.
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