Yes, my friends, you read that right!

Jennifer and I are officially engaged to be married!  I must say that in my excitement I have already written TWO lengthy blogs about the details of our engagement but each time I have accidentally DELETED them just before publishing them!  AUGH! 

Note to self: I gotta slow down and save each entry as I go...

Anyway, for the past hour I have been writing down what happened yesterday and this is my THIRD attempt...wish me luck! 

Well, to give some background, Jennifer and I have been together for a while now.  Oh, about 7 years, 6 months, and 19 days or something like that - I'm a bit date-crazy if you can tell.  With that in mind, I decided to ask her to marry me exactly one year from our proposed marriage date.  We had chatted about the possibility of getting married on 08/08/08 since it's such a unique date.  A once-in-a-lifetime date.  So, since Jennifer is someone I feel so lucky to have found in my lifetime, I thought I'd go for it!

Jennifer is more of a private person, so I realized that my engagement plan would have to be more personal and involve only our "family" - so no big public displays would be necessary.  Our "family" includes her two 'puppies' - Dallas, an Australian shepard/Lab mix, is the alpha female matriarch at 12 years young; and Bailey is our "little girl" - 10 year old black lab.

I knew that Jennifer had a workout scheduled after work so I had some time to get things prepared with the girls!

Here's how it went down yesterday (08/08/07):

While Jennifer was away, I called her mother to ask for her daughter's hand in marriage.  (Yes, I'm getting more old-fashioned in my old age.)  Once she gave me her blessing, it was all systems go!

Once Jennifer got back from her vigorous workout, I knew she'd take a shower before dinner.  While she was busy, I took a few doggie treats and some pieces of marinated steak, and "convinced" the puppies to don my special pre-made, handwritten, home-grown, T-shirts:

Each T-shirt had yesterday's date on the front, and the words, "Will U" on one side, and "Marry Mel?" on the other.  Dallas (left) is rather skittish with clothing and was ready to pounce out of the shirt at anytime, whilst Bailey (right) just wanted to lie down and get cuddly.

It took a couple of bones each, PLUS steak to get them perfectly poised once Jennifer came downstairs!

Once she did, she saw the messages, and a huge smile appeared on her face.

I sat her down, professed my love for her, and on bended knee I gave her this ring:

And asked her those four special words, "Will You Marry Me?"

She said, "Yes!" and I placed the ring on her finger and our new future was born!

We are planning on a Hawaii wedding on 08/08/08.  Dreams do come true!