There isn’t a clear-cut place to start the story of this weekend, really. So many things happened through the course of events from Friday to Sunday, it’s a bit overwhelming to digest, even having experienced it all first hand. We took a bullet train ride across South Korea, worked with several translators, met the lady that was the neighbor and town mayor to Meghann’s birth mother that knew the circumstances of her birth and adoption, and of course, got engaged on the beautiful Haeundae Beach in Busan, the city where Meghann was born.
For today, I’ll be sticking to the story of Meghann and I. The rest of the items will be added to my long-running list of items to write about from this trip, which I’m sure will keep me writing long after the trip has completed.
Meghann and I initially met through my time in the Leadership Development Program at Wells Fargo in late 2008. Our first face to face meeting did not go well, actually. We were at an after work event while in Phoenix, and while I don’t recall this, I was apparently very rude and short with her. 🙂 I think I was probably just nervous starting my first job, surrounded by many unfamiliar faces at a dinner social event. Soon after the event, my leadership class were sat down to interview with Meghann and her manager to determine which assignments we would get working in her group. My interview went well, and landed me working with her directly on the first parts of the Wachovia/Wells Fargo integration for the mainframe group.
I was energized by this assignment. Meghann was definitely a fireball at work, to the point where the rest of my leadership class was intimidated by her. She kept challenging me, loading me up, having me call new people and work on things I was completely unfamiliar with. I in turn kept rising up to the challenges, turning around assignments in significantly before the deadline, and paying attention to every detail, but also listening to her feedback to make sure I always met or exceeded her expectations. We gradually built a strong mutual respect for each other, and enjoyed the challenges we would throw at each other.
The first time we ever hung out outside of work was in early 2009, Meghann flew into town for a work event and I volunteered to pick her up at the airport and grab ice cream before dropping her off at the hotel. We discovered that we had many similar interests, including fitness and exercise, travel, and ambition at work. She even liked playing video games, occasionally. We had a lot of fun joking around, and soon after made plans to run the Twin Cities Marathon together later that fall. Most of my fitness experience was weight lifting, although I had recently trained and run a half marathon the summer before.
We continued to become closer and closer friends, until we eventually started dating. Despite living halfway across the country from each other, we kept in close communication. We begin writing each other long emails every single night, which continued for over a year until I moved down to Phoenix to finally close our distance gap. We even still continue the tradition to this day when one of us is out of town. The best part of this though was that it allowed our relationship to be based on a strong friendship.
We’ve had several other significant milestones in our relationship, including running marathons and half marathons all over the country, adopting two amazing dogs, moving to a new house, and finally, the Korea trip that we’re on now.. which leads back to the topic at hand.
I’ve known since very early in our relationship that I’ve wanted to marry Meghann, in fact it was difficult to wait to propose as long as I did. Based on all of our life circumstances though, the timing was for the best. I bought the ring back in January, which made waiting 5 months for the Korea trip the longest of my life. I had originally planned to propose at the N Grille at the top of the Namsam tower, which slowly spins for a 360 view of Seoul. It’s also where we locked the bracelets to the fence from one of our first dates. Despite being a beautiful location, I saw the menu when we were at the tower earlier in the week and realized that there wasn’t anything on there that she would like. Knowing that would not be a good way to go, I decided last minute I needed to make a new plan.
I knew that our hotel for the weekend trip to Busan was going to be on a beach, and given that was the city where she was born and had great scenery, it seemed like a good opportunity. When we arrived at the hotel, I quickly scoped out the beach for possible locations while she was busy talking to someone in the lobby. The next piece I had to figure out was the timing. Meghann has been passionate about running since I’ve known her, so I thought it would be appropriate to propose before a morning run together, which we’ve done on and off throughout our relationship.
So the morning came, and I snuck into the bathroom to pull the ring box out of the Nintendo DS case I had it hidden in (the only place I knew she wouldn’t look), and we headed down to the beach for our run. Rather than taking off on the boardwalk for our run, we stopped to admire the beauty of the ocean, beach and city landscape. We walked to down to a private area I had earlier identified on the beach behind a huge pile of sand (needed because I get stared at a lot here as a white guy) and confessed that I had brought her down on the sand to ask her something. I was very nervous, as I had been waiting for the moment for so long, but I got down on one knee in the sand, presented the ring and asked her to marry me. She said “Yes, of course”, tears were shed and we embraced. It was a very nice moment.. then of course, we headed up to the boardwalk and began our run. 🙂
So, that’s the story behind one of several major events this weekend.. Everyone else on the trip has been very gracious about it and congratulating us, and Holt even had a cake sent to our room to congratulate us! Also, as I’m writing this from the road, I can’t add pictures until later.. Photos added! Everything has been uploaded to Facebook if you’d like to see pictures of the ring or the location of the proposal. More to come on the rest of the trip and exciting weekend!
