So I had a strong feeling that it was coming for a while in advance.  I kept getting these hints, some subtle and others not so much.  For one, we were looking something up on her phone together and I see all of these ring advertisements.  And if that wasn't clear enough, she ends up outright asking me my ring size a few days later.  This woman can be dense, let me tell you.  There are other ways she could have found that out...  Anyway, it gets even better.  A day later she says "Hey, there's a package coming on Thursday.  "Don't open it!"  She goes on something like "Don't open it, don't touch it, don't even look at it!" (At least, that's what it felt like).  She couldn't have stressed it more.  Clearly something was up. 

We had a family cruise planned, 2 weeks off and we couldn't wait.  She was on nights (which always kills me).  Her last day of work was Friday night, so I decided to wait up for her.  When she got home, we decided to have a bonfire and star gaze on the hammock over a few beers and enjoy the start of our vacation.  The sky was so clear, the night couldn't have been more magical.  Over the course of the night (or more like morning), we talked about various things,  One of which was a game we liked to play called "Why do you love me?"  She asks me this all the time and I give her a laundry list of reasons.  I wrote her a song for God's sake...  Then when it's her turn, she lists one or two.  One this night, however, she goes on for more time than I can remember with all of her reasons and I'm eating it up. 

At the end she asks "Do you want to do this with me forever?" as she holds out a ring.  Mind you, it's dark and we're both LAYING on the hammock (no kneeling), so I'm not 100% sure that this is what I think it is.  So after a long pause, I say "Are..are you proposing?"  Even though there were so many clues in advance, I was still caught off guard.  Probably more because I thought I knew when it was coming too.  My guess was on the cruise in front of all of my family.  Come to find out, that was her original plan.  But as Colleen lives, it was instead by the sweat of her ass.  And what was her response?  "Well...if you're gonna say yes!"

I'm not positive what my response was after that, but my answer was yes.  There was no doubt in my mind as to my answer, I was just unsure how to read the situation.  Oh, the story gets better.  So obviously I want to tell everyone the news that I'm engaged as soon as possible, even though it's like 5am at that point.  I don't exactly remeber how it was brought up, but I said something like "What did my mom say?"  She goes "About that... she doesn't know."  So I basically pulled her by the ear to my mom's house the next day to "ask" her for her blessing (she was ecstatic by the way).  And as crazy as this whole story seems, I wouldn't have had it any other way (it's very "us").  I can't wait to spend the rest of my days with her.