Matt's Birthday is April 1st, and I had the best day planned for him. The idea was to keep him clueless to my plans and make him think his whole special day was going to be spent sitting in the office, which would have worked flawlessly except that he wasn't clueless.
Merrit absolutely loves to make plans that go according to how she sets them forth. So to have my own plans secretly entwined into hers was something she never saw coming. As much as she would have loved to have pulled an April Fool's gag on me I was already on the inside modifying her plans. What she did do for my birthday, however, was still both surprising and wicked fun.
The day started off with homemade Belgian waffles (yummy, except that they didn't sit too well in our tummies since we began our BeachBody P90X diet and exercise program). At lunch time Matt and I left the office for F1 Boston--an indoor go-cart track that added to my already upset stomach full of waffles. This was purely to appeal to Matt's "man" side. (Don't worry, Honey. For my birthday I want to watch the 6-hour version of Pride & Predjudice.)
It amazes me that Merrit, when driving her Jetta, will tailgate and speed (even told me I was practically a grandpa when I was only going 75 mph). Yet at the track where the average speed is ~30 mph she may have topped out at 13 mph.
I then took him shopping on Newbury Street for some new black shoes (anyone who has seen his $6 slip-ons will understand the necessity for a new style). We might have spent more time browsing the new spring dress line than looking for men's shoes, but at least we were together, right? :) Matt casually said that he wanted to go walk down to the Boston Common which is where we had our first date. I agreed and we started our walk down memory lane, or so I thought.
I'm surprised I came off as calm and collected because inside I was anything but. The day before Dana and I had been downtown picking out the perfect spot. Our plans were for her to setup the goods (guitar, flowers, etc.) at the gazebo prior to us arriving. We would walk up and I would simply sweep Merrit off her feet with my dashing good looks and vocal ability that makes even Michael Bublé swoon. That's what the plan was...
We walked through the Gardens and made our way over to the Commons, stopping at the gazebo, Frog Pond, and where we had our first kiss. We would have spent more time except that the parking meter was running out, so we started back towards the car. On the way Matt received a phone call. He didn't recognize the number and asked if I knew what area code 720 was. I told him it was Rob's phone and thought that I had missed his call on my phone. Curiosity set in when my phone had no missed calls. Matt answered and the conversation was short, full of uh-huhs, oks and yes. When he hung up, I asked him who it was and after a brief pause, he told me it was Rob who was downtown, saw us, and wanted to say hi. Now, I work with Rob and I knew this wasn't true so I gave him a very skeptical look. He then changed his story and told me it was was brother from Colorado wishing him a happy birthday. I wasn't buying any of this and asked him why he was lying to me. Finally he confessed, "Alright. It was actually your sister Dana. I told her that what I really wanted for my birthday was to have pictures taken where we had our first date." So we turned around and headed back to the Commons.
Major miscommunication. Dana and I had agreed to contact each other via cell phone. Problems arose when the number I thought was her cell phone turned out to be the house phone. You can probably imagine the beads of sweat forming on my forehead when I sent out a text message asking if the gazebo was setup and got this response: "508 yada yada...is a landline #." So when we walked to the gazebo and nothing was setup I can't even begin to express the instantaneous indigestion and nausea. Turns out the 720 number was Dana telling me she saw us walking away and that she needed a couple minutes to get things set up. And yes, I am a terrible liar.
We stopped at a tree in the middle of the commons that had a long, low branch. Matt asked me if I could get on it, so of course I accepted the challenge. He was really just trying to distract me and turn my back to the gazebo.
This was the smartest move I could have ever made. Look at the picture below. See the gazebo through the trees on the left? Yup. I'm goooood. Can you picture the enormous "?" over Merrit's head?
He then told me that we were meeting my sister at the gazebo, so we made our way over there. This time, as we walked up the steps, it was decorated with roses, pictures of us, a stool, and a guitar. Of course, I'm thinking "This is it!! Finally!!" (She had no clue.) Matt had me sit on the stool and he played me a song that he had written for me. (Swoon)
As he sang the last line "I'm falling down to my knees..." he got down on his knee and sang"Will you marry me? Will you marry me? Will you marry me? Merrit all I'm asking is will you marry me?"
He then pulled out the ring from his back pocket and if I hadn't said yes before, I certainly did after seeing ring!!
Actually there is video evidence that may suggest she didn't actually say "yes" until about 5 minutes later when I asked her if she did, to which she replied, "I think so." At that point I made sure she did.
Since we did get engaged on April Fools Day, some people didn't believe that this was for real. I left a message for one of my girlfriends that we were engaged and she left me a message announcing that she was pregnant with triplets! The funniest though came from Matt's dad who suggested that Matt now needed to take my ring back saying, "Just kidding. Its a CZ!"
Ok, truth is folks we're having triplets!
Following the conference we spent a few days hanging out with Merrit's cousin (Shea) and her family. We had a fantastic time enjoying the warm weather and frozen yogurt shops with Shea's daughters. Yogurtland became my favorite find in Vegas!! It is the perfect treat on a sunny day, and its located right in the middle of awesome shopping. Doesn't get much better than that!
My other favorite find was The Mexican Restaurant we had to visit twice. Delicious!!
