Roothie got promoted!

Ruth has now officially risen from the ranks of merely girlfriend to fiancee!

So here's how it went down:

In Summary
At a lakeside bench of Shoreline Park, on one knee, with Felix and Randy as accomplices putting on music, releasing balloons, and bringing forth a rowboat for us to paddle off on after the proposal.

In Too Much Detail
We started with a very elaborate plan involving parachutes, model rockets, and fireworks, but it's definitely a good thing that we abandoned those ideas as it was a ridiculously windy day and enough stuff to coordinate as it turned out.

Date: She already knew it was coming at some point in July since she'll be out here for the month and we had talked about it beforehand, so it was going to be hard to surprise her. In an effort to accomplish the impossible, I went for the blitzkrieg approach on the first day of her arrival.

Location: I ended up picking Shoreline Park since we enjoy going there, primarily since Ruth likes feeding the ducks, although I seem to remember some signs mentioning that it maybe isn't a good thing to do. Nontheless, it's a scenic spot, as well as an easy one to have an excuse to come to on her first day back on the list of her "things to do when back in the bay area".

Plan: Randy and Felix would head to the lake first, rent a rowboat, decorate it with some balloons, streamers, candles, a bouquet of flowers, have music at the ready, and paddle to an area obscured by some trees. Hubert and Ruth to arrive later under the pretense of feeding ducks, feed the ducks, sit down at the bench, give some random gifts from the recent Europe trip, signal the accomplices with the cell phone to cue the music and start paddling over, do the spiel, get on one knee, release the balloons from the boat, exchange places with Randy/Felix, and paddle off into the distance. Sound good?

Execution: It went... sort of according to plan. Randy and Felix were there early, but the wind was really strong and blowing back towards the dock. I really have no idea how Felix managed to paddle against the current all the way over to the designated spot. But apparently it was difficult, as when I did a quick phone check from home, they were asking for more time.

After stalling for a period, we finally headed out and took local roads to take a little extra time. Once we got there, had another quick call to let them know that we were there. I was carrying a backpack since the other gifts I got from Europe were pretty bulky, but came up with a pretty lame excuse for bringing it as I meant to put my jacket in it, but forgot. But we made our way from the parking lot...

But there were no ducks anywhere! Afterwards, we thought they might've gotten scared off by the big July 4th barrage of visitors and fireworks the day before, but the place normally teeming with literally hundreds of ducks was empty. Ruth was pretty sad as we approached the bench area, but I had to keep her from trying to check the other side (where Felix and Randy were staking out) to see if the ducks had waded on over. I could already see a couple balloons waving violently in the wind, so we made a beeline for the benches.

We sat down for a bit, Ruth of course completely distraught over the lack of fowl. There are actually three benches in that area and some girl came over talking on her cellphone, stopping briefly at the neighboring bench before thankfully moving on. All the while, Ruth looked really ready to track down those darned ducks. After the intruder left, I sat Ruth down and gave her the first two gifts, a tshirt with the World Cup logo and World Cup themed gummies, both of which she seemed to like.

As I dug into the backpack to call Felix/Randy, Ruth got up again to start exploring and determined to find these ducks. Having already set things in motion, I had to call Ruth back to the bench and when she turned around to see the "something else I have for you", her eyes caught the ringbox and got really wide and tearied. And she stopped talking about the ducks :) So I started going off on my spiel as Felix and Randy paddled into view, which kind of distracted her as she was trying to figure out who they were. And we got our signals crossed as they initially thought I was already done and released the balloons, which further distracted her. In short, she was both caught up in the moment and supremely distracted, so I don't think she remembers anything that I said. But she did wait for me to finish and said "Yes" multiple times, so that was good :)

Felix/Randy brought the boat ashore and we swapped places. They did a great job decorating with the streamers, candles, and the tulips. I had the much easier task of paddling us back with the wind to return the boat. That was already a difficult task given how windy it was and how inept I am at paddling, but we eventually made it back!

Photos: Some pics (and from earlier in the week)...

Earlier in the week with the parents:


Littered with ducks in the early morning reconaissance session:


The first two gifts:


The accomplices approach via boat:


The happy couple afterwards:


The entire gang, post-operation:


A closeup of the ring!


Parting Thoughts: Wow, that was quite an adventure... for all the planning it took, it was over in like a half hour :) Thanks for everyone who helped out, especially Randy and Felix.

Edit: At least it didn't go like this fiasco :)

Love ya, Roothie! :)