This Is Really Happening...

The ring on that finger belongs to one Renee Simms.  I presented it to her while on one knee on the beach at Juno Beach Park in Juno Beach, Florida.  Said ring was presented while I proposed marriage to one Renee Simms.  The same Renee Simms that I've been dating for nearly 9 months and whom I'm unashamedly, madly in love with.  The proposal went down during our spring break vacation last week.

Back in January, when it was reallyreallycold, Renee said one night, "wanna go to spring training?"  I thought that sounded like fun, so we found some flights on Southwest Airlines during her spring break from school and booked our trip for March 22-25!  I had been to Cardinals spring training exactly once, with my dad back in 1998.  Little did I know back in January how memorable this spring training trip would turn out to be.  

First, a little back story....

Renee and I knew by the middle of February that we wanted to get married.  (Okay, truth be told, Renee knew as far back as last October, she says.)  Our feelings for each other were obvious and we also felt that God had confirmed our future was with each other.  We also knew that if we wanted to be married before she had to return to school in August, we'd better get in gear and start planning. Church and reception venue got nailed down in short order, and we began looking at rings.  She and I made trips to several local jewelers so I could get a pretty good idea of what she wanted.  I'm SO GLAD we did that.  Guys, you DO NOT want to mess up the ring, trust me on this.  The ring was purchased by early March and I began waiting for the opportune to make my proposal.  Sadly, our schedules got busy with this, that, and the other and we didn't get much time alone until it was time to jet off to sunny Florida on Tuesday, March 22.

Now, on with the real story...

Wait, a beach!  Yeah, Florida has lots of those!   What a romantic place to pop the question of all questions for single ladies!  Sometime before we left, I nonchalantly mentioned that we should take a romantic walk on the beach at sunset.  Maybe even on our first night?

(I didn't sleep well the night before our departure, so I was feeling under the weather during our flights, sadly.  Seriously.  Mini-migraine happened as we were approaching Tampa to catch our connecting flight to Ft. Lauderdale.  Don't ask me about our hour in Tampa.  Couldn't tell you.)

I caught a cat nap en route to Ft. Lauderdale so I felt functionally better as we arrived.  After we drove up to our hotel near Jupiter, we settled in and tried to figure out where to eat.  Long story short, local seafood restaurant.  Massively long wait to eat, massively long wait for food, after dark when we were finished.  No beach that night.  Bummer.  Ring was in my pocket--my baggy-pocket Polo jeans that I packed specifically for the purpose of carrying the ring unobtrusively.  We headed back to our hotel to call it a night.

Next morning (Wednesday), I felt 100% better and after breakfast, Renee suggested we hit the beach before our Cardinals game in Jupiter in the afternoon.  "That sounds like fun," I agreed.  (I know what you may be thinking, but she totally DID NOT suspect what I was going to do.  She had a FEELING it might happen but not that morning.)  I grabbed the ring box out of my backpack and slipped it into my pocket. (I wore different shorts than the night before, but luckily it wasn't obvious what was there)  We decided to just head east until we found a beach.  U.S. Highway 1 wasn't too far away and we soon spotted beach through thick roadside hedges.  Juno Beach Park appeared before too long so we parked and headed across the road to get some sand between our toes.

Sorry folks, but I must withhold the most intimate details of the proposal.   Some things are just too personal to be shared with the world.  Suffice it to say, it did involve me descending to one knee in the sand (I have the picture to prove it!) presenting the ring and popping the question.  She accepted, of course!  We spent the remainder of our time walking the beach and asking random Floridian beachcombers to take our picture together.   Our friends and family were notified shortly thereafter, and most importantly, we broadcast the news to Facebook late that evening (sarcasm intended).

The day was already perfect, but the Cardinals extended it by beating the Mets later that afternoon.  The game was great and the weather was perfect.  Later that evening, we got dressed up in our Sunday best and drove over to Jetty's, a highly-recommended fine-dining seafood restaurant in Jupiter.  Our experience this evening was much better than the previous evening's.  We were seated right away at an outdoor table that overlooked the intracoastal waterway.  The food was delicious!  After dinner, we relaxed on the pier behind the restaurant.  Our perfect day was complete.

(One great thing about getting engaged is that people don't mind taking your picture.  We asked numerous random Floridians to snap our photo and once we mentioned the word "engaged," they were more than happy to oblige.  One such person was the evening front desk clerk at our hotel, a sweet young lady by the name of Erika Haslup.  She was naturally thrilled for us when we enlisted her for a photo and explained our engagement.  The next evening, we returned to our suite from an evening beach walk to find a sweet treat of strawberries drizzled in chocolate and vanilla  icing accompanied by a bottle of wine chilling on ice.  She left a sweet note expressing her happiness for us.  We thanked her profusely but politely returned the wine, as neither of us drink.)

We took in one more game the next day; Cardinals at Mets in Port St. Lucie, about 40 minutes north of Jupiter.   The Cardinals didn't fare well at all, losing 16-3.  The drive was easy and the weather was again perfect so we didn't think it was a wasted day at all.  Another beach walk after our evening meal completed our trip.

..................

So, a week later, "this is really happening."  That's come to be our unofficial catchphrase.  I am really helping to plan a wedding, OUR wedding.  A wedding to the woman who was set aside just for me by God.  Sure, I could be really blue and regretful about the fact that I could have been doing this 10 years ago, but no.  I will not.  God's timing is the best of all times. so says Bach in one of his famous oratorios.  (I know it came from Scripture but I can't remember where!)  I wouldn't have wanted to be married to me 10 years ago.  The John of this day and age is in a much better place, personally, spiritually, and emotionally.  The John of this day and age will absolutely be a better husband than the John of 10 years ago (or even a year ago, for that matter.)  I've had to make some pretty giant leaps of faith during the course of our relationship; God has proven himself to me during each and every one of them.  I am happier doing life with Renee than I ever would have been going it alone.  That much I know for sure.

This is really happening.  To me.  To her.  To us.