Dan and I meet 5 years ago in Bryan, TX at St. Joseph’s Hospital. I was a Physical Therapy Tech and attending Texas A&M University. He was just starting his Family Practice Residency. Our eyes locked one day when he was on his surgery rotation and observing one of my patients. He asked me to babysit his cat, Tatjana while he was at a medical convention and I agreed. When he returned home, he suggested he take me to dinner to thank me, which lead to a movie.
We dated for 3 years in College Station,TX. Once I graduated in May 2002, I moved to Houston, TX to teach Special Education. When he graduated from his Residency in July 2002, he was stationed at Hurlbert AFB in Fort Walton Beach. One year later I got a job offer to be a Regional Training Manager in Sacramento, CA and moved out west. This meant he was in Florida and I was in California.
One week after I moved to California, he was told that he was going to be stationed at Kadena AFB in Okinawa, Japan. Dan knew he had to do something to keep us together. He contacted my co-workers in California and told them to set up a horseback riding trip in Napa, CA to celebrate our 5 year dating anniversary since he couldnt be there because he was moving for Japan that weekend. I thought that my girlfriends had set up the trip and had no idea Dan was part of this.
My girlfriends and I met at Skyline Park and to go on our horseback ride. Half way through the trip, I look up the mountain and there is Dan in a traditional Scottish Murray kilt like the ones they wore in the Battle of Culloden. He laid his weapons at my feet and promised that he couldn’t guarantee my life would be a fairy tale, but that together we would make a pretty good story. I said “Yes”, after some prompting (due to shock). We got back on our horses, Sammy and Cody, and rode down the mountain where he had set up a canopy of roses and had wine, cheese, bread, fruit, and desserts.
Once we got back to our cars, he took me to the Candlelight Inn, where immediately we got a one hour massage together. Then a limo picked us up and inside were my parents, whom he flew in from Texas. Together, we went to the Domaine Chandon winery and then to Auberge du Soleil for dinner our engagement and to watch the sunset. The next morning we went on a hot-air balloon ride to watch the sunrise. It was magnificent. We plan to get married June 2005.
Proposal Story By:
Melissa Wertz
Sacramento, CA
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