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Since everyone seems to like the story of how Kelly and I got engaged, I thought I’d share it with the world. I’ll tell the story from Kelly’s perspective so it adds a little suspense. =) Pictures can be seen in the Photo Gallery.

It all started last week. I had purchased tickets back in April for the final regular season game of the San Diego Padres (my favorite team), which happened to be against the Los Angeles Dodgers. It was a Sunday game and Kelly and I had planned on driving down on the day of the game and then coming back up to Los Angeles. The Thursday before the game, September 29th, I had dinner with Kelly and her parents and mentioned to Kelly that I had talked to one of my friends in San Diego, Nick. He had told me that he was going out of town and that Kelly and I would be welcome to stay at his apartment Saturday night if we wanted to come down the day before the game. I told Kelly that it might be fun to go down Saturday during the day and do something in San Diego like going to the Zoo, Sea World, or just wandering around town. We decided we’d head down around noon, do something fun, and then have a nice dinner.

Saturday morning we woke up, had breakfast, and prepared to head down to San Diego. Kelly took a shower while I packed and vice versa. Once we were ready to go we headed out the door. However, I realized I had forgotten something and told Kelly to start heading to the car and I’d catch up. I caught up shortly thereafter and we were off for San Diego.

We spent the car ride down talking about various things. We laughed and had a grand ole time. It wasn’t until we arrived in San Diego that I realized that I had forgotten the tickets to tomorrow’s Padres game! Fortunately, a call to the ticket office solved the problem. With some quick verification of my information they were able to find my tickets and make them available to be picked up at will call. Crisis averted. However, I realized at this moment that I had forgotten to make dinner reservations for tonight. There was not much I could do in the car so we’d have to figure something out later. I could tell Kelly was a little disappointed in my poor planning.

We’ve arrived in San Diego and now it’s time to figure out what we’re going to do while we are here. Since it was such a beautiful day out I thought it might be a good idea to go out to Point Loma and look at the wonderful views it has to offer. It had been a while since I had been to the Cabrillo National Monument, but I was pretty sure I remember how to get there…except I got lost. Fortunately, my detour took us by the Sunset Cliffs and we back on track in no time.

We arrived at Cabrillo National Monument at about 3pm. We parked the car and headed over to the visitor’s center. We took a look around, saw the statue of Cabrillo with its fantastic views of the San Diego Bay, and then headed up to hill to the lighthouse. We did all the touristy stuff like reading about the history of the lighthouse and even went up into the lighthouse itself, although we couldn’t go up to the top. We then made our way to back side of the lighthouse to the cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean. We marveled at the fantastic view. Kelly turned to me, hugged me, and told me how much she loved me. I told her how much I loved her and then said, “Did you think coming down to San Diego this weekend was just random?”

She replied, “Yes”.

“Well, it isn’t. I’ve been planning this for months and…”

Suddenly, Kelly clapped her hands together, jumped in the air, and said “Are we going on a boat ride?!”

“No. We are not going on a boat ride.” I said, as I tried to gather myself. “We’ve been going out for nine months now and I’ve realized that I can’t imagine spending my life without you. I brought you down to San Diego because this is where I was born and spent most of my life. It has a special place in my heart and I wanted it to be special for you, too. I brought you down here”, as I started to fish around in my pocket, “to ask you”, as I go down on one knee, “will you marry me?”

Without hesitation, Kelly grabs the ring from my hand, puts it on her own finger, and says, “Yes!”

We kissed and hugged for a while, but then the moment became too much for Kelly and she needed to sit down. After taking some time to compose herself enough to stand up, we took some pictures and sat back down. I then explained all the events that had happened leading up to this moment. I told her how my mom had given me my grandmother’s engagement ring to use, if I wish, and that I asked her to bring out to California with her in April. I told her how the Monday before, I had gone down to her parents’ house and asked their permission first. I told her that we were not staying at my friend’s apartment and that we staying at the Omni Hotel in downtown instead. I told her that we actually did have dinner reservations and that they were at a very nice restaurant overlooking the San Diego Bay. Again, she needed more time to compose herself.

Once Kelly got her legs back, we headed down to the car and started making the phone calls to our family. We were a little surprised to find both of our parents were out of the house even though I told them when to expect the phone call, but, thanks to cell phones, we were able to get in touch with them. Once all our families were told we made our way to the hotel.

We checked in and headed up to the room. The room was beautiful and had a gorgeous view of the San Diego Bay and we could actually see the cliffs we got engaged on in the distance. Shortly after getting in the room, there was a knock at the door. At my request, the hotel and brought up a champagne bucket, filled with ice, and a couple glasses. I then took out the bottle of champagne that I had stashed in our suitcase (remember I forgot something when leaving the apartment and told Kelly to head on without me). We had bought this particular bottle during our trip up to Napa back in April. Once we celebrated with a couple glasses of champagne we relaxed and watched a bit of the Notre Dame game.

After a bit of downtime, we got dressed up and headed off to dinner. We had a lovely dinner at the Star of the Sea which is right on the water in San Diego Bay and is right next to the Star of India. We had a table right against the window which gave us a wonderful view of the harbor. To help us celebrate, the restaurant even gave us a complimentary soufflé.

After a long day, we made our way back to the hotel for a long awaited rest. As a final treat, we enjoyed some fireworks coming from the Padres game that had just finished. It was not long after we arrived in the room before we both out like a light.

The next morning, we woke up and enjoyed breakfast in bed. We packed up and made our way to the ballpark to enjoy some daytime baseball at Petco Park. We were a little early so we toured the park a bit. Once game time hit, we got to our seats, had a couple hot dogs, and enjoyed the game. In between the 4th and 5th innings, I asked Kelly to take a look at the scoreboard. On the out-of-town scoreboard in right field, the following message was displayed:

Kelly, will you marry me?
Kevin

As she turned back to look at me, she noticed that I was down on one knee offering her back the ring I had gotten from her a half inning before.

And that was end of the excitement of our engagement weekend. It was a lot of planning and a lot of work, but it all paid off. The weather couldn’t have been more perfect, the plans went off without a hitch, and the woman of my dreams said, “Yes”. It couldn’t have been more perfect.