I know I'm kind of a techno geek, but I figured it'd be a little easier to put the story online so that more people could hear it and in case I miss any details or make it sound better every time I tell it in person. Here's the real story.
I'll start with some background. I'd been dating Amy, an Omaha native, for 3 years, 7 months, & 2 days. As I was corrected in front of all of our family for saying 1 day instead of 2. We met in Indianola, Iowa during her Sophomore year after the last game of the football season when I was coaching at Simpson College. That's a good story too, but maybe I'll save it for a later date.
As for the planning for the big day I had been working things out in my head for a couple months. Amy decided that she wanted to challenge me to a "Biggest Loser" contest. I jumped in and said, that's fine, but whoever loses the least weight between her and I has to buy the other one a $50 gift. I did some quick math in my head and the 6 week contest would end right before when I was wanting to ask her. So I lost a little weight, but was making sure I didn't lose more than her. If you didn't catch on yet, this would give me an opportunity to give her a gift or take her out for a nice dinner with out any suspicion other than I was owning up to losing a bet, which by the way I don't lose many of. :) She had been hinting at wanting a dog and by the end of the contest things were falling into place nicely.
Now to the actual happenings of the day. My family came to town as they always do on Father's day. Amy and I take our dad's, and whoever else wants to go, to the College World Series games. We've done this for 3 years now. So we went to the game and the score basically made it out of reach during the 4th inning but we stayed for the rest of the game. After the game coincidentally my family had to hurry back home and her dad had a family emergency (a trip to the airport) so we couldn't all eat out together after the game like usual. So I told Amy we should just eat out on our own. After 15 minutes of criticism about me eating all the time and wanting to spend money to do it (not really, that was a little bit of an exaggeration), Amy agreed to go eat at Spaghetti Works in the Old Market area. We've had some good memories at Spaghetti Works in DesMoines & Omaha. Me meeting her grandmother for the first time, dates during her college in DesMoines' & a rehearsal dinner for one of her best friends. So it was nice place, but didn't ruin the surprise by being too fancy. We had a nice secluded table and eat a regular dinner. Then I asked her if she'd like to go on a little walk to burn the calories. We don't make it down to the Old Market much for dinner and decided it might be nice to enjoy the weather a little. So we walked down towards Con-Agra Park and started a little stroll around the "lake". As we're walking around the West towards the south side, we come across a strange package placed under a bench. Every one that had walked by it had already been looking at it strangely. As we approached it I asked her what we should do about it. I then proceeded to remove the blanket and pick up the packages. Amy says to me, "You can't just take other people's stuff!". As I'm unfolding a blanket that says Newton Cardinals (my high school mascot). I unfolded the blanket and placed it on a nice little rock area in front of the fountains. She then figured out I had somehow stashed things there, but not how. I told her that I planned something a little special for losing a bet, even though there wasn't proof that I lost. So we sat down and I gave her the 1st gift bag. She opened it to find a stuffed dog. I told her the dog was a symbol that I thought we were ready to both pick out a dog for us. She was all excited about that, almost teared up, but was ready to go. I continued conversation by asking her what she wanted to name the dog. She threw out a couple names she had already mentioned and I did the same. I then asked her if she liked the name Diamond (me already knowing the answer), she replies "No, because my uncle has a dog named Diamond." That's when I got onto my knee and pulled the ring out of my pocket. The next few things I said were kind of a blur. So before she can say yes, I hear a mother calling her daughters to come back to her. Out of the corner of my eye I see these 2 girls, that I would guess were around 6 come running up to Amy and I. Amy says yes, the mom grabed 1 girl, the dad grabs the other and the mom says "Congratulations!". It was the cutest thing. I'm not sure who she was, but she was the first to tell us congratulations. We both answered thank you, then went back to enjoying the moment. We talked a little bit as she tried to put everything together. Still in shock that I pulled it off without her finding out. It was a great suprise and we are both so happy.
The pictures and video are to follow in the near future. Seriously, I had a friend stash the goods and then video tape the whole thing from a distance and I recorded everything on a tape recorder from my pocket.
So back to the part I almost forgot, we rushed back to the house to celebrate over some nice champagne I had picked up and when we walk in the house, her mom, dad, dad's girlfriend, grandmother, and my mom, dad, and sister were all in the living room to congratulate us. They were all so happy to be included and be able to be there for the moment. We played the audio and video for them, where she had asked what each family member knew. It was a perfect ending to a perfect day. A father's day our dads will never forget. They were crying their eyes out and the rest of our family was so happy for us.
UPDATE(06-21-2008)
Video