Throughout the course of our long distance relationship we had talked about Christina's travels to St. Louis to visit Daniel and tour the city, his university etc. So Christina came up with a plan to surprise visit him and what better time than at our one year anniversary. With the aid of two of Daniel's colleague/personal friends Christina arranged a visit to St. Louis in November 2010. After landing, Christina was driven to the university where Daniel's friend had "car trouble" and required his assistance outside in which the true nature of the 911 call was revealed. Christina had walked up behind Daniel and completely surprised him at his school.
We both then had a five day extended weekend to spend together. But Daniel would not be beat and let Christina do all the surprising that weekend. On Sunday, November 15th, 2010 we went to the local city park, Forest Park, after church where Daniel had told Christina that he wanted to have some worship time in the park. So we grabbed our coats, packed a guitar, and headed off to the park. We walked around until we found a pond to sit by and Daniel took out a guitar to start playing. He first played the song, "Blessed Be Your Name" and Christina half sang/half mumbled with him. Once again, Daniel seemed to be totally in his element not really caring what other people had thought of his singing, and let's just say this his singing was probably equivalent to those blooper tapes you see on American Idol of the people who get rejected in the first round.
After the song, Daniel told Christina that he had wrote a song for her and that he wanted to play it for her. Christina assumed that it was another worship song that Daniel had wrote and came up with the brilliant idea that she would video record Daniel playing the song on her iPhone. Daniel ignorantly said yes and began to play the song for her. It probably sounded like a walrus barking at the zoo, but Christina nonetheless sweetly and patiently listened. About half-way through the song Daniel began to get choked up and before singing the line of the song, "Darling please wear this ring." Christina didn't get it, but instead sat next to Daniel smiling and recording Daniel with her iPhone. Daniel managed to finish the song, began crying, and then reached into his backpack that he had brought along with him. Christina was still sitting, smiling, and probably thinking about how much it would cost for Daniel to take vocal lessons. Then Daniel turned around, got down on one knee, and reached into his pocket. Christina looked confused until she saw a little velvet box in the palm of Daniel's hand. "Oh No ... oh no ... oh no" Christina started saying. This wasn't exactly what Daniel had pictured Christina saying in his mind when he thought of proposing to Christina but he went with it. Before Christina could get to her fourth "oh no" Daniel had opened the little velvet box which was presented with a ring ... upside down. Once again, Daniel didn't picture this happening either but shortly corrected the ring so that it was right side up. Christina began crying, dropped the iPhone and Daniel asked her to Marry him. She said yes and Daniel had slid the ring onto her finger. However, the ring was 3 sizes too big and wouldn't stay up straight on Christina's finger. Once again, Daniel didn't really think of this happening when he would propose, but continued to go with it. We both hugged one another and cried for another minute or so before packing everything up. The iPhone was still recording as all of this was going on.
After we had finished packing everything up, a random man with a camera who was taking "nature photos" in the park somehow appeared out of nowhere and asked if we wanted our photograph taken. I asked him if he was real and the man said that he wouldn't mind taking a photo of us. We had told him that we just got engaged and he said congratulations and that he really thought our photo should be taken. Given the aggressive nature of this man, I figured he wouldn't let us go without letting him take our photo. So we let him take a few pictures and he e-mailed them to us afterward.
To pay for the pictures we have to advertise for him. So, his web page is ... just kidding, don't worry things weren't that weird.
