The Proposal as told by Bailey

I remember waking up early one June morning and thinking, "Okay. This is it. This is the day that I'm going to go get myself into insurmountable debt to prove my love." Let's run through the check list really quick.

Willingness to commit? Check.

Unconditional love? Check.

Unwavering confidence that she will say yes? Check.

Enough available credit? eh....I'll make it work, Check.

Now that I have the ring, it's time to plan how I want to ask the most incredible woman in the world to marry me. I've actually known how this was going to happen for quite a while. I've been planning this out in my head for quite some time, waiting for what I think is going to be the perfect time. If there is one thing that Lisa and I appreciate together, it's feeling like we're on top of the world. Knowing this is what made me decide that I was going to get rooftop access to the tallest building in town, a modest 15 stories, but it will work for us. She'll love it. I somehow convinced the manager of the Cosmopolitan hotel to let me do this.

"You're not going to jump are you?" he asks.

"No sir," I reply trying to not sound hesitant. I'm sure he thinks I'm a complete nut, but I don't care. I have this idea and I'm going to make it happen. He finally concedes and I have over come the biggest hurdle in my plan. Now the question is, when exactly do I do this?

I eventually decide that two days after Lisa's birthday would be the perfect time. It's on a Saturday so she won't be working and I can involve family and our friends, especially her friends from the Ft. Smith area. The stage is set. I arrange for us to have a table set up on the balcony of our hotel room so we can have a nice dinner over looking our beautiful city to the north. On the day of, I blind fold her and tell her that she can't peep.

The hotel is about 2 blocks away from our house, however, I decide to drive her around for about 30 minutes so that I can throw her off. In doing so, I almost make her throw up. We get to the hotel and I lead her to the elevator, up to the 15th floor, and into our room. She is still blindfolded and quite nauseous by this point. The waiter is standing in the room waiting for our arrival and welcomes us. This startles Lisa. Time to remove the blindfold. Quite annoyed when she finds out that she is still in fact in Fayetteville, she exclaims "You jerk!" We both have a laugh and end up having a beautiful dinner.

Soon after dinner I call for the maintenance man, who I affectionately refer to as "Scruffy the Janitor," and he leads us up to the rooftop. There is a bucket with a bottle of champagne, two glasses, and a rose. I take Lisa to the edge and pop the big question. She says yes and I am a happy man. We stay on the roof for a little while longer watching the sun set and I let her know that there is one more surprise.

We take the elevator all the way down and walk into a ball room. There stands all of our friends and family for a surprise birthday party/engagement party. I've never seen Lisa so thrilled. We announce our engagement upon our arrival and spend the rest of the night with friends and family.

At this point we have decided that we will be getting married in September of 2010. This blog will keep our friends and family updated as to our progress in the planning process of the big day. Stay tuned. For now, enjoy some pictures from the party!