On December 9th 2005, after planning for a few weeks, I proposed to my girlfriend Sandi. We had been dating for close to a year, and with much prayer and counsel from godly people, I thought it was time to “up the notch” of our relationship.
Sandi was at Disneyland with her best friend Janea who works for Grace-to-You. GTY had a company outing to Disneyland, so Sandi, Janea, and some other friends were there the whole day.
It was a beautiful Friday in Southern California. Normally, I would have been teaching computer lab classes at Grace Community School where I work. Sandi didn’t know that I took the day off. She also didn’t know that I had been planning with Janea for a couple of weeks about proposing to her at Disneyland.
We didn’t have much detailed plans. All I knew was that I was going to Disneyland, and meet up with Sandi and Janea somewhere somehow inside the amusement park. As soon as I got there, Janea and I sent text messages to each other so that I could avoid being seen by Sandi before “The Moment.” After finding out where they were, I made sure I avoided that part of the park. While they were enjoying the rides I kept walking up and down Main Street to find “The Spot.”
Finding “The Spot” was quite challenging. There were many potential spots that could have been “The Spot.” One obvious choice was in front of Sleeping Beauty’s castle. But, as the Lord would have it, the front of the castle was closed due to filming. I walked around the castle, trying to find other spots that might be “The Spot.” Then I saw it. Off to the side of the castle, one of the paths to the right of the drawbridge, there was an area that was kinda secluded (not much pedestrian traffic) and had a well! I thought, “this could be ‘The Spot,’” and even started planning in my head how I would get Janea to take Sandi there and pop the question there.
After coming to the conclusion that this was indeed “The Spot” I decided to wander around and have a light lunch since I had some time to kill (Sandi and Janea were still going through rides). As I was enjoying my corn-dog, I made sure to turn away whenever I saw someone I knew from Grace-to-You. I saw a few GTY folks, but they didn’t see me :)
After lunch I decided to go back to “The Spot” again just to make sure it was still there and to rehearse the plan in my head. But, lo and behold, the filming crew moved to “The Spot”! “The Spot” was closed off!
I was alarmed, but I didn’t panic. Part of me was kinda relieved because, while “The Spot” was nice, I wasn’t really sure about proposing in front of a fake well next to a fake castle. Something about that seemed very... fake. So I sat down in an area to the left of the castle where there was a highschool chorale group performing. I thought I could just get Janea to bring Sandi there and I’d propose there, but then I thought that might distract the kids from their performance. I was running out of ideas, so I went ahead and called Janea.
Jon and Lola (two good friends of ours) had met up with Sandi and Janea in front of Disneyland. Jon was another accomplice to all this. They started making their way to the middle to Disneyland where there’s a statue of Walt and Mickey. I could see that area from where I was sitting, but I was far enough that unless Sandi was really looking out for me she wouldn’t have been able see me.
1 Thessalonians 5:17 instructs believers to “pray without ceasing.” In my walk with the Lord, December 9th 2005 is probably the day that I was most faithful to that command. That was quite a prayer-filled day for me. So, though my choice for “The Spot” didn’t work out, nevertheless, “The Moment” arrived.
I saw them from a distance, taking pictures by the statues in the middle of the park. I started to walk towards them. As I was walking towards them, I began to think that my life would be completely different after the next few minutes. What I was about to do would affect of the rest of my life. These thoughts didn’t dissuade from propsing to Sandi, they just made “The Moment” all the more memorable.
As I got closer, my friend Jon saw me coming, and being the true and wise friend that he is, he distracted Sandi’s attention by having her and her friends pose for pictures. When Sandi saw me, she was surprised to see me there. Then I took her aside and told her that I had one more surprise for her. I got down on one knee, took out the ring, and popped the question. She was quite surprised. So surprised, in fact, that she didn’t really answer my question. She finally did. The very existence of this website is an indication of her affirmative response to my question.
So that was “The Moment,” right in the middle of Disneyland, around 2:30 PM, surrounded by friends, showered with prayer. She said yes.
