Okay, deep breath.... So on our first date I took Amanda Kate to one of her favorite restaurants (Young's). It is a nice Vietnamese place that served some great house tid bits. After that I tried to take her to the local fun plex(putt putt, swiming etc.) in Greeley, but it was closed. (Bummer, what a great planner I am j/k) So from there I improvised and decided that going to a nearby park would be fun so we could get to know each other better. I just so happened to bring a football and naturally taught Amanda Kate how to throw and catch, I even showed her how to tackle:) We then sat and talked and had a great first date.
I explained our first date above simply because my proposal to Amanda Kate was basically a reenactment of our first date. I changed things up a little bit but I did propose at the same park we went to on our first date. The park is called "Glenmere Park".
So now to the good part. I planned a secret picnic at Glenmere Park for the two of us on Sunday April 20th, 2008. I made sure that I down played the whole thing to Amanda Kate so she didn't think anything was coming. I told her that I would like to cook her dinner on Sunday night, but that I had a lot of homework to do so I would not be able to do anything with her after wards (Thanks to the under promise over deliver sales lesson I learned eariler in life). Now my biggest challenge was to over deliver.
On that Sunday afternoon I had my friends (Brian and Marlene) help me set up the park and reserve a table. I had that picnic table decked out in a table cloth, roses, a card, and of course the food for the evening. I decided to grill some brats for her. I also had some potato salad, chips, drinks and some smores. I thought it was a great meal.....even though it may not have been the most romantic food, it was at least good food and plus I cooked it which is rare.
Amanda Kate set this "Suprise Picnic" up wonderfully. She said "Isnt it a nice day, why dont we go on a walk or something?" I replied "Perfect! Lets take a walk to the park!" We walked and talked on the way to the park and as we got closer to the picnic table that I set up Amanda was amazed at how nice the table looked. She did not realize that this was for us until I went over and sat down at that table. She said "Steve...This is not our food." I then told her that this was for us. She laughed and was impressed I think.
After we ate and played a little bit of catch we roasted some smores in the sunset and I dropped down on one knee to ask her if she would be my Queen and marry me. Up until that point I called her Princess Kate. She said "Hi" and I was like....what does that mean? She then said yes and explained that she was saying "hi" in Japanese which means yes in English. Duh, I should have known that since I speak Japanese but I was a little bit nervous at the time. It was a beautiful day at the park and I was the luckiest guy ever to be engaged to the love of my life, Queen Kate.
