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Our story begins at the beginning of this year, when Lani and Mike decided to go backpacking through Europe with a few of Lani's coworkers. Shortly after they started planning for the trip back in February, Mike immediately started wondering if he could propose to Lani during the actual trip, preferably at some really romantic location. Naturally, Paris quickly came to mind. But there were many hurdles that had to be overcome first, and we continue our story from there... Chapter 1, The Blessing  I decided I needed to first talk to Lani's parents to ask for their blessing. I e-mailed Mr. Giffin with a message entitled "Long Term Plans." Saying that I wanted to have a talk with both of them, I suggested that I could either fly down to San Diego for the day, or we could just talk on the phone. Initially, Mr. Giffin said the phone would be fine, but the next day he said that Mrs. Giffin thought it would be a better idea if I just flew down. About a week later I called home to talk to my parents, and my mom answered the phone and said, "You're coming home on Tuesday!" I responded, "Why am I coming down to San Diego on Tuesday!?" She then said, "Why is Mike coming down to San Diego on Tuesday?" And I said, "What!? Mike's coming to San Diego on Tuesday? Why is Mike coming to San Diego on Tuesday?!" At that point, my Dad got on the line and said, "I don't think she's supposed to know!" Me, "Know what?! What's going on!? Why is Mike going down to San Diego on Tuesday!?"I was excited and eager to know more... but at the same time, I realized that they had just ruined whatever Mike had as a surprise for me. So I told them to not tell me any more information. A few days before Mike was to fly out to San Diego, I talked to my mom one more time. She told me, "I'm going to give Mike some Zong Zhi (Chinese sticky rice) to give to you." So I said, "How is Mike supposed to explain that?! I'm not supposed to know that he went down to San Diego! Please don't do that to Mike!" She said, "Don't worry about it! Don't worry about it... I'll think of something." The setup was perfect because I figured I could just fly down around 9, be there for lunch, and fly back around 2. I should be back by 4, and Lani would've never known I had left.The morning I left, I was surprisingly not nervous at all. I wasn't calm enough to get any work done on the plane, but I brought a good book, which kept me occupied on the plane. When I arrived, they picked me up outside of San Diego baggage claim, and they took me to a great Chinese buffet. Mrs. Giffin asked for a table in the back corner of the restaurant, where we were able to get a little more privacy. Right off the bat, I laid out my intentions. "Mr. and Mrs. Giffin, it's probably not much of a surprise why I'm down here... but I wanted to come down and talk to both of you to ask for your blessing in my asking Lani for her hand in marriage. I don't really have a speech or anything much prepared" (which is true... I didn't... I was basically just winging it at this point) "but over the past year, I've fallen in love with your daughter. She has been so wonderful to me, and I hope I can be just as wonderful of a husband to her." After asking some questions about my family, my career, etc., they gave me their blessing. Then, on the way back, two interesting things happened:
Later that afternoon, I got an e-mail from Mike saying that my mom had called and asked him to pick up some Zong Zhi from a family friend that another friend had driven up earlier that day from San Diego to San Jose. I laughed and thought, "Oh really." I decided to have a little fun with Mike. I called him right away and I told him, "It's sooo interesting that my mom called you instead of me. Why would she do that?" Mike quickly responded, "Well, she said she tried calling you on your cell, but you probably didn't pick up because you were at work." Hmph.My next question was, "How did she get your phone number?" Mike paused for a split second before answering, "She got it from the time I had to drive your mom and dad to the train station a couple of weeks ago." I had the feeling that Mike was little too good at covering up his tracks. After asking him a few more questions to try and trip him up, I decided to give him a break. When Lani called, she started firing all these questions at me. "Shoot," I thought. "Does she know? Did I do something to give it away? Surely, no one could have told her. Only my accountability partners and her parents know that I went down, and I know Alvin and Jason wouldn't tell her. And her mom just told me earlier today that they didn't tell her..." But I decided to let it go. I had more important matters to attend to.I knew Lani was scheduled to meet up with her accountability partners later that evening. Once I was pretty sure that she had left school and was on her way to meet with them, I headed to Shane and Company (which just right around the corner from her school, thus the cautiousness of my visit). We had gone there once before a while back, so I already knew which ring that Lani liked. And actually, I had gone there almost half a dozen times over the past two weeks (I'm sure the salespeople there were getting a little annoyed with me), so I already knew what I wanted to get. It was just a matter of going in and paying for it. |
