"Oh my, this rock is heavy!" - Meg's Story

Many of you may have heard the exciting news by now thanks mostly to Facebook and some good ol' fashioned phone calling. Mike and I have had a very exciting weekend. "Exciting" actually is a word that doesn't even begin to cover it. It has been a whirlwind 45 hours, and due to high demand, I'll detail all the events. If you just want the "big news" though, skip to the last paragraph of this posting.

We got into LAX Friday night (Saturday morning) at about 1:10am PT. By 2:00am we had our rental car - a minivan - and we made it to hotel. I was up by 7:00am, which sucked. Our first appointment to see an apartment was at 10:00am. We looked at places all day long. We lost count, but we think we saw at least 15 places. Some were kind of a waste of time, but others were very promising. By the end of the day, we had four on our short list. Three were just west of the VA complex off San Vicente. The 4th between Santa Monica and Wilshire just east of the Santa Monica city limits. We had a few more appointments set up for Sunday morn, but unless they were stellar, the choices were between these four. We were tired, our listings folder was full of notes, highlights, cross-offs, and we were ready for some downtime.

All afternoon, Mike had been talking about how he wanted to go to the beach that evening. He and I both love the beach, and during out first trip out to LA in April we didn't have a chance to make it there. So at about 6:30 or so we headed out to the coast. We went North on the PCH (aka Pacific Coast Highway, aka Hwy 1) and passed about ten miles worth of perfectly good looking beaches. I pointed this out to Mike as he drove past vast stretches of sand. He was, however intent of finding an area he claimed was "less crowded." He also wanted to do a little more driving because the sunset wasn't until 8:00. (Tangent: Mike loves sunsets. Ever since he visited Taylor one New Year's during college and took a professional-grade picture of a sunset on Malibu beach, he has been talking about and shooting pictures of sunsets. So the fact that he kept talking about this was actually pretty normal.) We drove up to Malibu (which from the road, doesn't at all look like what you would picture it) looking for some public access to the beach. We found a little area, parked the car on the road, and walked down to the sand.

We walked along the cold water's edge, talking about the few surfers catching the evening's waves, the coastal water and birds, and the weather. Mike's envisioned sunset, we quickly realized, was not going to materialize the way he imagined. In fact, it just didn't happen at all. It was so overcast we couldn't even see the sun, and it was setting over the buildings instead of the water anyways. But, we walked along, hand in hand, until we ran out of beach. We took a seat in the sand, watched the remaining beach-goers pack up, along with the life guard. The only people left were the fishers, a good 100 yards or so away, catching what, we didn't know. While we were sitting, Mike drew tic-tac-toe boards in the sand - no decisions in two games. He was getting what I thought was a little antsy, so he got up and walked in the direction of the fisherman, and I assumed he was going to ask them about their catches. I stayed in my spot in the sand, trying to relax after a somewhat stressful day and just enjoying the scenery.

A minute or two passed, and I looked in the direction Mike headed. Instead of talking to the men, he was about 30 yards away, playing in the sand. I thought perhaps another, larger tic-tac-toe board. A minute later, Mike was on his way back over, calling to me. "Come here for a minute. I drew a portrait of you in the sand. Come see it." A portrait? Last time I checked, Mike didn't draw. But I went over to see his masterpiece anyways.

I had to read it at least 4 times over. Mike then took my hand, pulled a ring out of his pocket, got down on one knee, and asked the same words written in the sand: “Will you marry me?” I'm honestly not sure what I said in response. I think I squealed "YES!" or I might have said "Of course I will!" or some combination of the two. I know I had a smile on my face that reached from coast to coast, so if my answer was unintelligible, I don’t think it mattered; the expression on my face gave my answer. We hugged and kissed, both overwhelmed with happiness. We took a few pics to capture the moment, called our parents, and savored the joyful moment.

In short, Mike and I are engaged! We haven’t set any date; we decided we can only handle so many life-changing things at once, and since we haven’t completely planned our move to LA, we are going to do that first, get settled a bit, then dive into wedding plans. Mike is going to be writing a post on this, too, with his take on the whole thing. I just know that this is the most excited I’ve ever been, I’ve been wearing a “perma-smile” for the last 26 hours, and I feel like the luckiest girl in the world; I’m going to marry my best friend and the love of my life.