Engagement story

We're engaged! It happened on 22 September, 2010 which was also the autumnal equinox, yay! We wrote the story from both our points of view -- Laura's being the main plot and my story as "behind the scenes". My story ended up being much longer but to be fair, the proposal required a lot more work on my part!

Laura's Story:
I knew the proposal was coming soon. I just did not realize how soon! Henry and I had been talking about doing a civil ceremony in Ontario in Summer 2011 (in case we needed to be married for visa purposes) and then doing a wedding in BC in Summer 2012. This was until he comes up to me and says, “Maybe we should move the wedding up to Summer 2011, since in 2012 I will be finishing my masters and we will be moving!" I then exclaimed “2011… Oh my gosh! It takes a year to plan a wedding! I would only have 10 months! If you want to do that then propose to me so I can start planning!”

Henry decided he liked the idea of a summer 2011 wedding more and more. So he told me he would propose to me soon. One day as I had an opening shift at work, Henry had to go to the bank (across from my work). Since he knew I was at work and could not leave the store he took the opportunity to look at rings. I was aware he was doing this, and it became very obvious when he keep making surprise visits to my store to ask me questions about what type of rings I like. Since I did not know what he was talking about, he decided he would show me pictures of different ring types when I got home that night.

So that night after Henry showed me different types of rings he decided to go back to the mall because he wanted to take another look at what Ben Moss had. Since he was going out I sent him to pick up a few items (such as crackers). So when he came back from the store he told me he did not buy anything from Ben Moss. Which I assumed meant that he did not buy a ring anywhere. He worded it in a sneaky way!

Since I cannot stand surprises (I am the kid that opened all their x-mas gifts way before), he decided to try and drive me crazy. Henry told me that there was a hint to the ring, and he left it in the car. I figured it was just a business card or something silly but I could not resist finding out. I grabbed Henry's keys and went to the car, which I proceeded to tear apart. After awhile of not finding anything, I moved Henry away from the car and shut the doors (I was still inside). I then locked myself in the car, and dangled Henry’s car (and house) keys in front of him. I had to shake the keys three times before he figured out that I had him trapped! I was able to get the location of the surprise out of him (it was in a bag in the trunk). I opened it up and found a diamond warranty from People's. I was surprised since I did not think he got anything so soon.

We went back up stairs and I asked him when he would really propose. He told me very soon, which I figured would be in a week or something. Henry said he was feeling hungry and asked me to make him my special cheese and crackers (with the crackers he just bought). I joked with Henry and asked him “What did you do? Hide it in the cheese?” Then I go to open the cracker box and I see a weird grey thing in the crackers. I was thinking “What the hell is this thing in my crackers, did we get a bad box?” I pulled it out and it was a ring box. Then I went “oh my gosh” turned to my right and saw Henry down on one knee. He told me that he loved me and that we are so great together, then he asked me to marry him. I said “yes!”. Then I asked “wait a second did you actually want cheese and crackers? Are you hungry?” He said, “Nope”. I still cannot figure out how he got from his chair in the living room to on his knees beside me, without me seeing him.

I knew it was coming and Henry still managed to surprise me, which is the craziest part! I was completely off guard and it was very sweet.
 
Henry's Story:

At this point in our relationship, we had been together for 5 years (anniversary was last week) and we had both discussed where we wanted to go with our relationship. Obviously, we were serious and committed to each other or I would not have asked her to move all the way to Kingston with me! So while it was something we both knew was coming, my goal was to surprise her and/or give her a fun story to tell.

Finding a ring was pleasantly painless. It only took me several hours over two days to finish shopping since the only jewelers in Kingston were downtown and at the mall. With everything condensed in two places, it made my life a lot easier! I looked at a few places downtown after school on Tuesday but didn't really find anything that felt right.

On Wednesday, Laura had an early shift at the mall and I had an appointment at the bank to figure out my tax free savings account so she took me to the mall instead of school. After finishing at the bank, I spent the morning shopping for rings at the many jewelers in the mall. Laura knew what I was up to (it's hard to hide things when you live together and share a car!) but I didn't mind since she wouldn't know what I would eventually decide upon anyways. Over the next few hours, I went to each jeweler, described what I was looking for and picked one or two favourites from each. The jewelers were generally very nice (I guess it's their job!) and wrote my favourites on their business card so I could keep track of everything. One place was really pushy with their sales though -- I felt like I was listening to an infomerical!

Laura and I had set a budget before I left so I had some guidance in finding a ring. Within our budget, each ring was generally great in one aspect, good in others, and not-so-good in the rest. So I had to find out which aspects were important to me and Laura (ie. quality of gem vs. size, etc.) . After collecting cards from each place, with several different types of rings, I left to think them over.

Despite arriving at school just before lunch time (and then having lunch!), and despite being preoccupied with thoughts of the rings, I still managed a semi productive day at school. After finishing her shift, Laura picked me up from school and we went home. I wanted to find her a ring that she would love while still keeping her in the dark of the specific ring I would eventually buy, so I showed her some generic ring images from Google to find out her preferences. I kind of felt like an optometrist (which is better, one? or two?). In an attempt to be sneaky I threw in some "placebo" images of ring types that I didn't see.

After dinner, I thought about what I have seen and heard today and felt more overwhelmed than informed! But then as I flipped through the cards, I remember one ring I really liked and it matched Laura's preferences. However, I wanted to go back to Ben Moss (the first jeweler) since I didn't really know what to look for the first time. Also, we needed to buy some crackers for Laura's lunch the next day so I figured I would go take another look.

I made it to the mall an hour before closing and went back to Ben Moss. But I didn't see anything that "felt right". So I went back to People's and took another look at the ring I had in mind earlier. It was just like I remembered it! I actually wasn't planning on buying a ring that night (but wasn't planning not to either) but it felt like the right thing to do. I don't make many big decisions impulsively but I decided to buy the ring right then. It turns out that it wouldn't be my only impulsive decision that night! But actually, it was a pretty safe decision since there was a 100-day return policy.

As I left the mall, I felt pretty good since ring shopping was over! (It was kind of fun but very time consuming). Then I realised... d'oh, I don't have a backpack...how am I going to bring the ring into the apartment without Laura realising what I had bought!! I decided to think it over while I bought the crackers (my original mission). My desperate backup plan was to drive to my office and lock the ring in my locking file cabinet. I figured that if no one knows where I hid it, it should be safe until the next morning. But I still wasn't comfortable with that. Luckily, when I bought the box of Breton crackers (and taco mix since it was on sale), I noticed, hmm it's width is approximately the same size as the ring box! When I got back to our building, I tested this theory while parked in the parkade.

It fitted perfectly! So I removed the bag of crackers from the box, put the ring box at the bottom, removed a handful of crackers from the bag and stuck the bag back on top. Perfect! I just hope Laura doesn't notice that the box had been opened. The ring box also came in a black bag that said PEOPLE'S in big letters and it came with the lifetime protection plan paperwork. I couldn't bring that in the apartment either! I decided to turn the bag inside out (so it just looks like a plain black bag), put the paperwork inside and left it in the trunk along with the other car-related stuff (flashlight, rags, etc.). My plan was to pick that up the next morning before heading to school and then hiding it in my office.

So with the ring safely inside the crackers, and all evidence hidden, I went up to our apartment hoping Laura won't notice the cracker box had been opened. Luckily she was on the phone with her mom so it was easy to stick the crackers quickly in the cupboard. Now all I had to do was keep quiet and take the ring out of the cracker box in the morning when I left for school (while Laura was still asleep).

But I couldn't keep completely quiet -- I decided to tease/torture her a bit and said that there is a hint to whether I bought any rings in the car if she looked carefully enough. She went down to the garage with me when I took down the garbage and looked in the car. She overlooked the bag for awhile as it was with the "car stuff" but she eventually forced me to tell her that it was somewhere in the trunk (see her story above). I had originally planned for her to find the bag/paperwork so she knew I did have a ring. But we were having a lot of fun with the "scavenger hunt" that it just felt like the right night to propose. Two major impulsive decisions in one night!

So after she found the "hint", she was really excited and we went back upstairs. My plan was working -- it felt like the big adventure of the night was finding that paperwork and her knowing that I've gotten a ring from People's. I then asked her to make us some cheese and crackers as a snack to celebrate her scavenger hunt success. I was extremely nervous as she got the ingredients -- what if she doesn't find the ring! When she opened the box from the bottom end, I was about to panic! (I thought she would open it from the top, remove the bag of crackers and see the ring box). Luckily it still worked because she opened the bottom and found a grey box, and in that moment of confusion, I was able to get down on one knee and ask the question! She was so surprised!! And she said yes! Mission Accomplished!

First week

It's been a busy first week of grad school for me and work for Laura. So far, our schedules line up pretty well -- Laura starts work at 8:30 so she drops me off at school around 8am. She then picks me up after her shift, usually around 5 or 6 in the evening.

There were several orientation events for school; lots of instruction on how to be a TA as well. I didn't meet many new graduate students in astronomy until Friday (the Physics Department Orientation day) but I did meet some other people (English MAs, and a Biology student from UBC too). There was a boat cruise/tour of the harbour and islands on the first night which ended in an impressive thunderstorm. I also won a free Queen's t-shirt that day. Now that almost all of the administrative things are finished (e.g. I have my student card so I can take the bus), I am looking forward to starting classes next week. So far, I've been mostly reading papers and meeting people in the department.

Laura is learning things fast at her new job in the mall.

Overall, we are adjusting to "real life" in Kingston well. The weather has definitely cooled down a lot.

August in review

We decided to occasionally update the blog from now on, despite the trip ending, to keep our families in touch with our adventures in Kingston! Since we have neglected this all of August, here is a super long entry!

The first few days, we didn't have a car so we did almost all of our grocery/furniture (2 small bookshelves from Zellers) shopping by walking or taking a bus. We only had to take a taxi once -- to pick up a kitchen table set from Wal-Mart. We also ordered a couch and a bed. We built the furniture while waiting for the delivery people.

On August 4, we were surprised to learn that our car was ready for pickup! Way faster than expected. Turns out that my old supervisor at Chrysler made some phone calls to help us out.

My parents arrived in Kingston on the evening of the fifth. They made it all the way here in only 6 days, with only my dad driving! They had rented a huge van from National which easily carried the other half of our stuff. In fact, it could have fit everything from our car as well. Apparently, with National's membership card (free), they got the one-way rental (drop off in Toronto) for a week for only $1000. Take note, anyone who may want to do this in the future! We took my parents out for a late dinner at (in our opinion) the best pizza place downtown. They bake the individual sized pizzas in a big stone oven. Very tasty. We went there on our first visit to Kingston and twice on our second visit in June to find apartments.

The next day, my parents took us to Toronto to go to IKEA. We had stuff picked out online while we were still on the trip and floor plans of our apartment to make sure things fit. We got very delayed in traffic, had a late dim sum lunch and dropped off some things for my friend who will be moving to Toronto later this month. We then spent four hours and a large portion of our furniture budget at IKEA. In total, we ended buying 13 pieces of furniture as well as cart-full of little items like cutting boards, etc. We completely filled up the van (less space since Laura and I also had to be there). We dropped by my aunt's place in Toronto quickly before heading back to Kingston. We got back really late -- 11pm. We unloaded the van and moved all the stuff up to our apartment as quietly as we could and my parents drove back to Toronto despite our protests. They needed to be back in Toronto that night for logistics reasons and didn't arrive until 3am!!

During the following week, my parents visited a ton of friends and family in the Toronto area, some they haven't seen for a very long time. Meanwhile, Laura and I built IKEA furniture for several days. The daily schedule was to build something in the morning, have lunch, then go out to buy whatever remaining things/groceries that we forget (to avoid the hottest part of the day since we had no fan yet), make/eat dinner, then build a couple more things. It took us about 4 days to finish everything. We did really well on most items! We made a couple of mistakes but we either found a way to fix it, found spare parts from another piece, or the problem did not seem to affect the integrity of the item (we hope!!). We had superglue on hand as a backup but we only had to use it on one set of shelves.

We even tried some bubble tea at a "fusion" place near the University/downtown and while the milk tea wasn't very good, the green tea bubble tea was great. It was almost Vancouver-quality, but the tapioca was a bit hard. Choices were limited though, it was only black tea, green tea, or milk tea with standard fruit flavours. No slushies or pudding or jellies!

My parents returned to Kingston on Friday August 13 with a supply of asian foods that we couldn't get in Kingston (or were much overpriced here), especially a nice rice cooker. Some items, such as our fan, were donated by my aunt and uncle (they had extra fans when they switched to air conditioners). My awesome parents also picked up a bike from a fellow UBC graduate doing a summer NSERC in Toronto. It will be useful until the snow/ice/cold comes and especially next summer since our Queen's bus pass only works September to April. On Saturday, my parents took us to Costco (they had a membership) and we got a lot of supplies. Costco had a referral program going on so we also got our own membership and some Costco Cash Cards, which basically means a cheaper membership. We probably won't be able to go to Costco much since it's really big stuff for only the two of us but with the referral deal and some items such as bottled water we should be able to get what we paid for membership back at least. They sell gift cards to a good restaurant downtown -- you can buy two $50 gift cards for $80. So that's pretty good.

Afterwards, we drove about 30 km east of town to Ganonoque and went on a short cruise tour of the Thousand Islands with my parents. The islands and cottages were very pretty! We looked some of them up -- some of them are selling for 18 million dollars (the cottages, not the land)!! Apparently, back in the day, when the government "leased" the land from the aboriginal peoples, it took them about 50 years to finally sell off all the islands to interested buyers. Some of the islands sold for only one or two dollars. Also, according to the tour, some of the cottages/islands are still inhabited by the same family that originally bought these islands. Photos at the end.

The next morning, we had breakfast with my parents before they drove back to Toronto to catch a flight home. The last two weeks of August were much more relaxing. We had our internet and TV set up about mid-month as well as an indoor parking spot. We shopped around for auto insurance, finally finding one that recognized our safe driving experience instead of charging us higher premiums for being young/male. We also spent the equivalent of a full day waiting in line-ups at various ServiceOntario offices to get our OHIP, driver license, and vehicle registration. And, we officially changed all our addresses to Ontario!

Laura's birthday was also in August and we celebrated with lunch at our favourite pizza place and dinner at Red Lobster. It was also a nice break for me since I didn't have to cook that day, for once! Oh, and we also picked up ice cream log cake from Dairy Queen. It lasted us for over a week! Laura's birthday present from me was the complete box set of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Amazon said 1-3 days but it turned out to take something like 10 days!

We did go back to Toronto one day at the end of August to visit Jen, a friend from UBC who was in Toronto for a summer project. We took the opportunity to go to T&T to pick up some food we can't get here and to also finish our original trip properly. It was fun to drive over the hill that killed our car last time and make it into Kingston properly!

So far, we really enjoy living in Kingston. We are very happy with our apartment and we love the atmosphere of the city. We don't really like big crowded places so Kingston is nice and small but it's still big enough to have almost everything we need (except Asian foods). There is a huge shopping plaza that is even bigger than Ironwood in Richmond and has pretty much every store that exists in Richmond. The mall has the 3 major department stores (Sears, Zellers, the Bay) and many smaller shops that we recognize. There are also some extra things like an outdoor movie theatre that shows a movie in front of City Hall every Thursday night in the summer (just bring a chair -- but we don't have any chairs that we can take!) and outdoor skating in the winter. I am looking forward to our time in Kingston!

My parents took a boat tour of the Thousand Islands with us.

An interesting cottage on one of the ~1800 islands.

This island/cottage was my favourite out of the ones we saw that day!