| Hello family and friends,
Some exciting news: On January 7, 2007, we got engaged!!!!! It's taken a little time to write out the full story, and we hope you will share with us in our joy. We're so thankful to God for bringing us this far!
Yay!  ~Danny & Hannah :)
Her Story
It was 4 Sundays ago on January 7, 2007, and we were hanging out for dinner and a movie at Danny's place. Danny had mentioned wanting to cook dinner for us that night and he sweetly obliged my reminder that he owed me some prime rib. When I arrived, dinner was almost ready, except for some soysauced mushrooms and gravy that needed just a little more time and meat sauce. Plus, I've been waiting all year to use his roommate's potato masher, and lo and behold...he had saved the potatoes just for me to prepare! Such fun! The food was *delicious*...tender and juicy...the potatoes were creamy and smooth...it was just a yummy, great dinner overall. It's been awhile since either of us had done much cooking on these 3rd year rotations, so home-cooked food is always a huge plus, plus the quiet peacefulness of eating at home instead of at the hospital or out somewhere.    (Hannah approves.)
After dinner, we were cleaning up, and I moved in to start doing the dishes. Danny had hinted that he had my belated Christmas gift earlier in the evening, and he made the suggestion that I open them now before we did the dishes. I thought it was a little weird, but he seemed so eager about it that I just decided to follow his idea. He brought out some nicely wrapped gifts and presented them to me.
The first were some Sony earbuds since my earphones were breaking. Second was a journal that he had written little notes in interspersed throughout. Then came the last gift. It was little and somewhat rectangular, but not your typical jewelry sized box. I couldn't help wondering a little bit, "Could it be??" but dismissed it because he had told me that he wouldn't be paying for the ring until loan disbursements came out in January/February. *Although*...my roommate had earlier that afternoon wondered aloud if tonight was the night that he would propose. But at that time, I had similarly dismissed the idea with the fact that he didn't have the ring yet. Anyways, the last little gift was a small Altoids mint tin. I opened it, and inside were 5 little colorful origami paper cranes. Danny explained to me that this was my "emergency" kit...that anytime I was feeling down or discouraged, I could open it up and read a message he had written of encouragement or a reason why he liked me. I gave him a big hug of thanks, we looked at the gifts a little bit more, and then went back to business and finished the dishes.
Afterwards, we settled down to pick a movie. I wanted us to watch "While You Were Sleeping", because it's one of my favorite movies, and he'd never seen it, plus I knew he liked Sandra Bullock. However, to be fair, I took a look at some of the other movies in the apartment, but still came back to my original preference. At this point, Danny interjected, "Hey I have something else to show you in my room." I thought he might have another random Christmas gift up his sleeve, but as he pushed the door open into his dark room, my eyes instantly focused onto a wooden dinner tray table that was being spotlighted by his bed.  Behind it was a full vase of flowers including my favorite stargazer lilies, and on it was a handmade card with a surrounding multitude of origami paper cranes in all colors of the rainbow. 
I kinda blankly looked at it, like "Is this for me?"  and he told me go read the card. I sat down on the floor and as I started to read the card, the bells were definitely dinging in my head that something was up, and when I got to the bottom of the card, it said "WILL YOU MARRY ME?" All I could say was, "What? Are you serious??" (I am so glad that Danny doesn't get fazed by my very slow reactions to momentous situations as such.) Then he repeated the phrase again asking me to marry him and got down on one knee (and then some since I was seated on the floor!) to put the ring on my finger.  I’m not even sure if he put the ring on my finger before I answered, I was so dazed in the moment. All I could think was, "How can I answer?? Yes? Of course? I love you?? Say  something woman, he's waiting!"...so I settled with the simplest: "YES!"
Then we talked and talked about all that he had done to prepare the special day, and how it turns out that he had needed to move it up a day because I was on call the next day! He told me about the conversation with my parents and shopping for the ring, but I'll let him tell you the rest of the merry details...
I'm so happy. and blessed. and still not quite believing. WHOOHOO!!!   
His Story  So, I know Hannah wanted to be surprised for the engagement, yet at the same time, certain sacrifices had to be made for the sake of pragmatism. You see, it was during break that I found the time to do some research and ring shopping, and this was when I was really brainstorming for the big question.
We only got 2 weeks for break, so I spent the first one doing extensive research on diamonds, rings, jewelers and what would be Hannah's preferences. Of course I needed Hannah's ring size so I not-so-subtly sent her a ring sizer pdf file and asked her to print it out and tell me what her ring size was... Yeah, well.. I needed to find out... Ahm. That Friday, armed with a few price quotes and a graph I found online, I went to Jeweler's Row in Chicago. Some of those places could come straight out of the movies, it was amazing as I wandered up and down 13 floors of diamond merchants, finally finding the perfect place.  The ring is set. That second week, I had Hannah on the phone and in a nice serious tone I said to her, "Ok Hannah, soo... you know that I am planning to ask you to marry me right?" she responded with a little noise, kinda like a "Oh" or squeak or something... I quickly continued "I tell you this because we'd probably get married in California, and you're there now, so you should start looking for places". :D I then continued to explain to her that this was for practical purposes, as she wouldn't be back there for many many months after she returned to Rockford for school. I also told her that the proposal probably wouldn't happen until some time in January-Februaryish, but by then it would be too late to start looking around. See? see? it had to be done.. and I did preserve the surprise... kinda... :P Fast forward to January 6th, the Saturday before. The plan was set (mostly) and I had the ring ready to go. I had planned on asking her Monday the 8th, but turns out she had call that night so my plan to pull-over-on-the-way-home-from-clinic-and-ask-her-under-the-stars-by-the-river-where-we-had-our-first-"official"-couple-picture wouldn't work because she would have to drive a separate car. :( Sunday the 7th it is! And a few last things to put into place:  The card. I had a friend who is truly masterful at card crafting help me out with this. She happened to have a little crane stamp in her amazing card crafting workshop which worked out perfectly. The cranes. Actually I had started folding these several months ago, each with a little message for her. There were 50 in total (48 cranes, 2 hearts). And over half of them I folded the night before. :P I got it down to where I could fold a crane in 6 minutes flat. :D  The call. I had arranged to have a conversation for me to ask Dr. Lim and Mrs. Lim for Hannah's hand in marriage. I had also sent a package out to Cali for them to open when we finished our conversation. I called them up at the appointed time and had a great conversation with them, answered a few questions Dr. Lim asked me, received some valuable advice and came away with their blessings and a tear in my eye. Oh yeah, and the package I sent them had 10 cows (stuffed animals) that I had collected during the break. A worthy "bride price" so to speak. :D **ask me later for full bride price story**  The flowers. Actually I had forgotten that stargazer lilies were her favorite flower until church the DAY OF. We saw a video with a bunch of flowers dying/decaying (it was about sin, death, etc). and she pointed out that one of those withering flowers was her favorite. I came home that day and frantically searched for a florist with stargazers that was open on Sunday.  The steak. :D This was awesome. I tried out a steak cooking method that I had learned of when I went to the Chicago Chop House a few years ago. Hannah's was a little better than mine, but she was kind enough to share. Let me tell you, that steak was AWESOME! As a steak cooker, I am almost hesitant to ever make steak again for fear of never achieving such an accomplishment again. :D
(picture of the steak again, taste drawn to scale) (almost!) And thus came the evening of the asking, as Hannah described it above. Despite her knowing that it was going to happen, I do think there was some element of surprise in there...
 Thank you our friends for reading.
(The cranes say goodbye!) |
