The Engagement...

Trevor and I got engaged on September 19, 1999 on the Hill of Three Oaks on the Carleton College Campus.

We had been living together all summer and, though we had talked about marriage, Trevor seemed very non-committal about the whole thing. So, by the time September rolled around, I had resigned myself to the fact that we were not getting married and would just live together as partners. Little did I know that two months before, Trevor had custom ordered an engagement ring from Spence diamonds.

The night we got engaged we were in Northfield attending a going away party for our friend Doreen who was leaving for Germany on a Fullbright Scholarship. Trevor suggested we walk out to the Hill and look at the stars and, since we lived in the city and weren't able to see the stars clearly, I readily agreed. Once we got to the hill (after scaling a construction fence and tromping across a gravel strewn field that was once covered with grass...damned Rec. Center!), we lay under the biggest tree and peered at the stars through the braches. Then Trevor starts babbling to me about how much he loves me, yada, yada. (Honestly, I wasn't paying much attention.) Then he pulls this box out of his pocket and asks me to marry him. My first response was "You're joking!" My second response was an enthusiastic "Yes!" followed by much hugging, kissing, and tears of joy!

When we got back to the party, I announced that I would be changing my last name to Peace and our future groomsman and bestman, Nick Patterson and Tom Darby, welcomed us with a bottle of Dom Pérignon (Trevor had told them what was going to happen when we slipped away from the party). What a wonderful night!

Actually, we almost got engaged the night before over dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory. I was telling Trevor about a dream that I had had the night before. In it, I had decided it was time to stop waiting for him to propose and I would just propose to him...only I didn't have a ring. After the engagement, Trevor said that at that moment, he wished he could have pulled out the ring and asked me right there because I set him up perfectly. There was only two reasons why he didn't: 1) He was waiting for my biological father to call him back so he could "ask permission" to marry me and 2) he didn't have the ring on him! (He was going to bring it that night, just in case the topic of marriage came up in conversation, but was afraid I would notice the bulge in his pocket.)