His Story

Proposing was probably one of the most nerve racking things I’ve ever done. There was no doubt in my mind, I knew she would say yes, it was just making sure everything went perfect. Before this day Lindsey and I had really never been away alone together. We had weekends without the kids, but these weekends always had either friends or family around. I decided that for our anniversary we would try and get away for the weekend, no kids, no family and no friends! The end result was only being able to get away for one night but that was better than nothing. Our destination was Malibu and I wanted to make the drive there eventful. Once we dropped the kids off our first stop was to have breakfast, We decided to stop at Mimi’s Cafe in Lake Forest. After breakfast we were back on the road and the next stop was a surprise for Lindsey. She had been talking about wanting to go shooting for a while so I thought that would be fun thing do. I did some research and found a place along the way called LAX Firing Range in Inglewood. I had never been to this range before but from what I could tell on their website it looked good. We got off the freeway and I started looking for the firing range, Lindsey was anxious and kept asking me were we were going but I wasn’t going to tell her just yet. My navigation says out loud “In xxx feet your destination is on your right”. We both look ahead and the first thing we see is a old giant neon pink sign that says “ADULT VIDEO STORE”. Lindsey looks at me with a smile and says “OMG, where are you taking me!” I was dying laughing, I told her that’s not where we’re going and she would find out soon. We go a little further and stop at a red light next to the range. There was no sign on the range so she still had no idea where we were going. We look to our right and a guy is walking down the sidewalk with a shotgun in his hand! No bag, no case, just a plain visible shotgun. She looked over at me with big eyes and I pretty much had to tell her where we were going after that. We parked and went into the range, it felt a little like a bunker and you could hear the guns going off. We rented a lane and gun and seeing how Lindsey really wanted to do this I figured she would be OK starting off with a 9 mm. We entered the range and like before you could hear the guns being fired, the difference now was you could feel it too! I love this feeling but I think it scared Lindsey a little, she looked over at me with big eyes as we walked to our lane. I loaded the gun and she wanted me to go first. I fired the first shot and looked over at her, she looked at me again with big eyes and shook her head. She was scared. I took the gun back and we swapped out for a smaller 22 revolver. Lindsey was much more comfortable with this gun and we went through the 100 rounds we got fairly quick. After that she was ready to step it up so we went back out and got the 9 mm again. She shot this gun like a pro and she liked it! Not only that but she was a really good shot, even at about 35 feet she was hitting her target in the head and chest. We spent a couple hours at the range and then hopped back into the car to make our way into Malibu. I had made reservations at the Malibu Beach Inn for a ocean front room, this room was amazing! The bed faced the ocean. We had a balcony, fireplace, huge sliding glass door and a view of the pier. The ocean was very close too, the waves would come crashing in and the water was only about 20 feet away. We were on the second floor which gave us an awesome view too. We hung out at the hotel for a while and had some beer & wine, then we got ready to go out to dinner. This is were my nerves really started acting up. I wasn’t sure exactly were I was going to propose so I had to bring the ring with me. It’s not exactly easy to hide a ring box! I tried to put it in my pocket but it was obvious, finally I found a place on my left side inside my jacket where I could put it. It was well hidden so long as she didn’t press up against me on that side. We went to dinner at a place that was also on the beach, I wasn’t all that impressed with the place but that really wasn’t what was on my mind. I wanted to have dinner during the sunset so we had dinner pretty early. After dinner Lindsey wanted to go out and find a nice place to hang out. I kept trying to get us to go back to the hotel and kept saying “maybe we could go for a walk on the pier”. At this point I was thinking at the end of the pier would be a great place to propose! Lindsey still wanted to explore so we started driving around looking for things to do. Each time we stopped I went into a panic. Should I bring the ring? Should I leave it? Then how do I get it out of my pocket and hide it in the car without her seeing it! It was still pretty early so there really wasn’t much going on. We decided to stop at the store, grab some snacks, a bottle of wine and to head back to the hotel. I was thinking perfect, we will go back to the hotel and we can walk down the pier… nope! When we got back to the hotel it started raining! Not only that but it looked like they had closed the pier too (there are two giant Jurassic Park doors at the entrance). We opened the bottle of wine, fired up the fireplace and sat out on our balcony talking, relaxing, and listening to the rain and ocean. At this point I was trying to figure out what to do and had decided this was probably a perfect moment. Lindsey was standing, leaning on the railing, and facing the ocean. I was behind her with my arms rapped around her waist. I coursed the conversation to be about us, reminiscing about our life together and our future. I was trying to butter her up a bit! She had turned around now facing me and I though, NOW IS THE TIME! I reached into my pocket to grab the ring. I felt like I needed to hurry, like if I did it too slow she would know it was coming and I really wanted this to be a surprise! I grabbed the box and it was stuck! It felt like it took me forever to get it out but I know it was probably only a second. I got down on one knee and said the words “Lindsey, will you marry me?” as I opened the box. The box had a light in it that shined on the ring, Lindsey’s first words were her crying and saying “OMG, it has a light”. I stood up, took the ring out of the box and put it on her finger. We kissed, she cried, and a few moments later she said “Oh, I didn’t give you an answer, YES!”. I already knew the answer was yes, her reaction had said it all! We spent the rest of the night “hanging” out in the room. The next day we had breakfast in bed, called our family and friends, packed up and went site seeing before we headed home. That night we had a cookie decorating part with our friends and kids which worked out perfect being that they could all see us right after! Everything went great!