Soon, my best friend's wedding will no longer just be a movie with Julia Roberts. Soon, it will be a reality starring my best friend, Kelli Maks. On February 19th, 2011, Brian Ross proposed to Kelli Maks... and she said yes :) This is my side of the adventure:
Super Bowl Sunday, Kelli and Brian made their way down from Portland to visit us Eugene folk. When ever they grace us with their presence, I get the pleasure of hosting Kelli at my place and this usually entails gossip and girl talk. This trip happened to center around the subject of when Kelli thought Brian would propose. She mentioned a trip they were taking to Bend in a couple of weeks and she thought it might happen then. It then became our mission for myself to talk to Brian and see if he would fess up. Kelli and I came up with this brilliant plan that Brian would tell me when he was proposing and convince him that myself and our friend Tony should be there after to celebrate with them. Well, that Sunday I gave it a go to ask Brian when he was going to propose and I get, in a yelling/angry sort of fashion, "I don't know, it's expensive!" followed by a "like I would tell you".... Mission: Fail.
Fast Forward a couple of days. I'm at work and I get an incoming call from Brian Ross. Of course I answer (I'm a very good employee) and this time I get a "I hate you....I'm going to want your help" He gave me the date to save and said he would follow up when he knew more, but explained that he was going to include myself and his friend Steve in the workings of his proposal to be there to celebrate with them. Long story short, Brian decided that on their way to Bend they were going to stop and go snow shoeing and that's when he would pop the question. After they were done, they had a plan to eat dinner at the Deschutes Brewery (where they had their first date) and there Steve and I would be waiting with a table to surprise Kelli. Perfect plan.
Fast forward to the day before the proposal. I must say, I'm very proud of myself for how well I lied to Kelli. I talked to her on the phone very briefly on Friday evening. I asked her if she thought it was going to happen that weekend and why she thought that and I told her that if I found out anything via facebook I would not be happy. Rest assured, I was 2nd on the call list :)
Saturday. I get a text from Brian saying they were 10 minutes from heading out to Bend. I go pick of Steve Melton and we make our trek. The passes were very snowy and so thank you to my mother and her 4-wheel drive that she let us borrow. A car in front of us definitely swerved across the highway into the snow bank - crazy conditions. Anyway, we make it to Bend safe, and head to the brewery with no idea how long it would take for Brian and Kelli to get there. We showed up around 2, put in our name and headed to the bar for some appetizers. They call our table and we sit down and order another appetizer, at this point we are just stalling time so we can keep the table. We decided to tell the waitress what was going on so they wouldn't get mad at us for holding up a table for who knows how long. She loved the story and got chills listening to it and every five minutes would come over and ask if we had heard anything yet. Time passes and finally around 3:30 we get a text from Brian saying they were engaged and on their way, predicting an hour before they get to the restaurant.... After that text, our conversation went down hill rapidly as both of us were to focused on watching the door for them. About 45 minutes later we get another text from Brian saying they were checking into the hotel and would be there in 10 minutes, anxiety was through the window at this point. Steve texted Brian back and said when they got to the restaurant go to the left and we'll be the ones hiding behind the menus. We finally see them walk past the window and I want to get up and run to them but Steve assures me we need to stick the original plan. Brian walks in the restaurant like he owns the place, Kelli looks confused as to why he wasn't putting their name in and they make it to our table. I jumped up and after Kelli finally realized what was going on, she screams "NO FREAKING WAY!!" followed shortly behind my screams of happiness. We embrace and the man at the other table goes, "what? has it been 5 years??" And then I exclaim that they were engaged! Some people clapped and others merely smiled, but it was a joyful room from all :)
The night continues. One thing I have failed to mention is that a few days before this, I was told by my doctor that I needed to start eating meat (for running and iron purposes) and so I decided to save my first encounter for Kelli. I got the elk burger which in fact was quite delicious. I only ate half in fear that if I ate the whole thing I would get sick being that it had been about 4 years since I had ate red meat. We finish up dinner (Steve and I were successfully there for 4 hours) and head down to the Winterfest happening a few blocks away. We met up with one of our other friends, Matt Jones who lives there and decided to watch the snowboard competition in the beer garden. Part way through, my stomach starts to hurt.... here comes the dreaded meat aches. About 1 minute after feeling the pain I decided this was going to come up, and it was going to happen quick. I made my way to the bathroom realizing that I wasn't even going to have time to wait in the one person line so I b-lined my way to a semi-secluded corner where my stomach said goodbye to the meat it had just welcomed. I made my way to port-a-potty strictly to regroup and to make sure I was good to go. From start to finish, it was only 5 minutes of pain and I was extremely grateful that it was so quick! After all that we watched some more snowboarding, got free hot chocolate, danced to some Katy Perry, checked out the ice sculptures, went to a bar (mainly for warmth) and then headed back to the car where they re-proposed with ring pops and we finally said our goodbyes.
Matt Jones let me and Steve stayed the night at his place and I fell asleep next to a fire looking out a snow filled back yard. A beautiful cap to a beautiful day.
Oh, and Kelli asked me to be her Maid of Honor :)
Brian, Kelli, Me, Steve
Practicing already for my maid of honor duties (I was trying to fix Brian's collar)
The bling.
My first bite into meat... I was a little frightened
What I feel asleep and woke up to.
