Growing up I played baseball as often as I could, collected baseball cards, played chess and just played anything that was going on around the neighborhood. In high school I started running and joined the track and cross country team, running the 800m and the mile in track and trying to run 3 miles as fast as I could in cross country. I topped out at a 5:07 mile and an 18:59 three-mile. Thought I was going to die after both.

I graduated from the University of Texas at Austin in December 2003 after three and a half years and was considering moving to Los Angeles to work for the show Marketplace. Fortunately, however, I decided to stay and continue a budding relationship with Erin. Now I’m looking for a job in Houston, preferably in the public radio sector. But, honestly, I’m just looking for a full-time job in something I’ll enjoy.

I have a young, shy pug named Dozer who is three years old. He’ll be joining us in Houston, where we hope to get a house or duplex so he can run around outside. I got him from the Dallas-Fort Worth Pug Rescue Group on August 4, 2004. If you can look at his face and not crack a smile, either something’s wrong with you or he just went to the bathroom on your floor.

To put it mildly, Erin is not a morning person.

On the weekend that Erin’s parents and sister were coming in, I decided to propose. But I didn’t propose in Austin.

I told Erin that we were going to Kerrville because Dave Blank (the site manager at Camp Chrysalis) was in town and we were going to hang out with him. She bought it because the jeweler who designed her ring is in Kerrville and the times we’d been down there Dave had always been out of town.

So I woke her up at 7:30am and started driving to Kerrville. Little did she know Dave had no idea that I was coming within 90 miles of Kerrville that day.

The drive down was interesting; with Erin not exactly pleased she was awake at 8am and trying to go to sleep in the seat next to me. We stopped at Rather Sweet (our favorite bakery in Fredericksburg) for breakfast and I proposed there. I was so nervous I didn’t get down on a knee and neither of us remember what I said, but she said yes anyways. Suddenly she perked up and was a lot happier the rest of the day for some reason.

We drove back to Austin and pulled into the Maudie’s parking lot and Erin started getting suspicious. I had, unbeknownst to her, planned for my parents, her parents, her sister and brother-in-law to meet for lunch at Maudie’s when we got into town. She figured it out as soon as we got into the parking lot, but it was a moral victory for me to be able to keep a secret from her. Erin’s friend and bridesmaid Ashley joined us for lunch as well, good times for all.

Erin’s Amendments to the Proposal Story:

I agree that I am not a morning person, but what Adam didn’t mention is that that weekend was my one weekend off in Austin for October-December. Between job interviews and family commitments I was pretty strapped for free time. So at first when Adam came up with the story that he wanted to go to Fredericksburg (about a 2 hour drive) to go to a bakery of which I had the cookbook I was a little confused. Then, he came up with the visiting friends in Kerrville story. Being the good girlfriend I agreed to go since I knew Adam had been trying to meet up with Dave during the whole engagement ring planning process.

Yet that morning, my one morning to sleep in, when I was awoken at 7 am I was less than thrilled to be going. Not only was my precious sleep time taken away but my parents were planning to come in that weekend, meaning the trip to Kerrville would be short (In my opinion for a trip to be worth the it the amount of time spent in the location must be greater than or equal to the total amount of travel time), and we were planning on going to visit my grandparents the next day (4 hours round-trip driving).

I admittedly took out these frustrations on Adam and he later admitted to me that he was a little worried about what my response to the Big Question would be. Needless to say the answer was “Yes” and I quickly went for the ring to see if the finished project matched my hopes from the planning/design phase; it did. I love it and how unique it is.

Back in Austin, I started to get a little suspicious about my family being there when Adam decided to take a longer route in getting back to my apartment. Then as we headed down Lamar my suspicions grew and as we turned into the parking lot at Maudie’s I knew something else was going on. I asked Adam if my parents were there and he said, “No…they’re stuck in traffic on Riverside.”

I had previously told Adam that since I knew the proposal was coming soon that if he slacked off I would make him do a “do-over.” Since I had been surprised by the events of the day I felt that he had done a good job.