How We Met
Daniel and I officially met on Tuesday February 26, 2013 on the sidewalk next to the UT Dallas Baseball field. A friend of mine was in charge of the spirit group “Diamond Dolls”. This was a group of girls who were each assigned a baseball player to cheer for at the games, bake cookies and buy candy for before the tournaments, and support the team. I was 3 months from graduating, not sure what my plans post-grad were, and not looking for adding something to my schedule. But when she reached out needing a few more girls to sign up, I eventually gave in and told her to “just assign me to anyone”. HA!
She ended up assigning me to #9 (My lucky number). I laughed when I saw his number and immediately looked him up on Facebook. The 1st picture I see is one of him and his friends in uptown (pretty sure I rolled my eyes) and a Texas Rangers hat (yuck). After creeping through his pictures and thinking he was cute-but reminding myself that I was about to graduate-I messaged him to let him know I was his “diamond doll” and to find out his favorite treats. Well Daniel was smoother than I thought and pulled the whole “I don’t get on Facebook a lot, just text me” and gave me his number. I was oblivious to whether this was a move at the time and proceeded to text him to find out his preferences on treats. At their home opener, I had given his basket of treats to another girl to take before the game since I was in class. But after class I headed to the game and it was after the game ended that we first met! Right there on the sidewalk next to the stands. I think we just waved to each other, if that, and introduced ourselves before each going our separate ways…we were both SO awkward. A few weeks passed and our texting got more frequent, we started hanging out, and next thing you know Daniel got the most sweetest BEST treat he could get from a diamond doll-a girlfriend :)
how they asked
Over 4.5 years later, Daniel FINALLY proposed! Let me start by saying how patient he is. The past year the comments and number of hard times he’s been given by me, my mom, my friends, his friends, and even strangers who found out how long we had been dating has been substantial. The past 6 months have probably been the worst, as MY patience was wearing completely thin and I was making comments every chance I got! (You know how often Elf is on during Christmas time…well at the end when they read Santa’s list…poor Daniel got the volume turned up on him, the “Are you listening? Are you paying attention to this part?”, and the “Did you hear that?”s EVERY time they read that all the news reporter wanted for Christmas was “a Tiffany engagement ring and for her boyfriend to stop dragging his feet and commit already”) Little did I know, he had a ring-the dream ring- and had it for almost 7 months! But he knew how important it was to me that I was surprised, so all these great opportunities that passed when he didn’t propose were because he knew I was expecting it to happen there (shout out NYC trip and Yankee Stadium!). He knows I love the snow, everything about Christmas, and wanted my family involved so…
When this December Saturday came, I was under the false pretense that my family was going to a Christmas light event to get some good pictures of the 4 of us for next year’s Christmas card. I’m thinking my parents are being so proactive and therefore, I was all photo ready (Smart you guys, really smart). I had gotten a haircut that day, thinking I wanted my hair looking so good for these Christmas pictures, and after my mom made a comment about how my nails didn’t look good from me picking at them (Smart, mom) I repainted them (luckily well) with a quick dry polish (Thanks Sally Hansen!). Then I found out my brother’s girlfriend and friend were coming, and poor Daniel got another hard time out of that one (“His girlfriend of like 1 year is coming from Dallas and you can’t?!”)…I’m a terrible and impatient person! I had been told by my mom that after the Christmas light event we’d come back and throw a surprise party for Tyler since he had been accepted to 4 law schools (Shout out to my future lawyer of a little brother!)…I was helping setup champagne and cookies, glasses, all for what I’d end up discovering was actually a surprise engagement party!
We arrived at the Christmas light event and for being there to “take pictures”, my family kept walking right by all these great photo opportunities! They were completely ignoring my comments about good backgrounds and places to stop -and my frustration was pretty obvious! I finally got them to take a few pictures with me before they ran off again. Finally when we got to this “snow” area my dad all of sudden wanted us to all take pictures in the snow (soap). He took 2 photos of Tyler and I and then stopped. Confused I looked at Tyler and he froze…I assumed he wanted me to brush the soap off him, so like any big sister I did, then I asked him to brush mine off and he sprinted away. When I looked back there’s Daniel!
My mind couldn’t keep up with what was happening and I was so confused about if it was him, if it was someone that looked like him, why he was there, if he was really there, and then I realized he was talking! Luckily we have a video or I would’ve missed everything he said! I heard “From the beginning…..special….best friend…marry me?” and he was on a knee.
I was crying and couldn’t even see the ring with the tears in my eyes! I nodded yes and then, once the ring was on my finger, asked “Seriously?” (Oh Molly!). His parents and mine were right there taking pictures, my mom had photo props she was giving us, and I couldn’t stop hugging him and looking at my dream ring! He CAN take a hint, he DOES listen, and now after 4.5 years we’re getting to see what this “Engagement” thing is all about!
