How We Met

I first met Jenny at an Ypsilanti Jaycees dart tournament that I happened to attend through no plan of my own. I was out with my friends Patrick (my best man) and Casey, shooting pool when Patrick decided to call a friend of his to see if he wanted to join up with us. It turned out his friend Jason, was at the dart tournament and invited us to show up and check it out. It wasn't long after arriving that I noticed Jenny and later in the night spoke with her some more. Jenny was the Membership Vice President in the group which meant she was in charge of recruiting members for the group, as a visitor it made things easy for me because she was obligated to speak to me as a result of her role. We had a nice conversation, and she took down my contact info so she could follow-up with me later about future events going on the group. She told me she'd be in touch and give me a call. I was pleased that I could expect to talk to her again, and didn't have to formulate my own excuse for contacting her. As it happened I also won the darts tournament with my randomly assigned partner, and unexpectedly met Jenny. A very good night for me.

Jenny's Version

In 2006, I was the Membership V.P. for the Ypsilanti Area Jaycees. This role made me go out of my comfort zone in many ways. A responsibility of my role was to organize, attend, and try to recruit guests at social events for our chapter. I was fortunate that at that time I worked with a Membership Director, Jason, who organized a dart tournament in the beginning of March so that I did not have to. There was a good turn out for the event and I was pleased that Jason was able to get three guests there. These guests came by chance as his friend Patrick had called to see what Jason was doing and Jason invited them to the tournament. I went about my business of trying to recruit these fellows. It didn't take too long to determine that Tim was the most likely recruit of the three. Patrick several times voiced that he would not belong to any group that would have him as a member. Casey did not appear interested. Tim appeared interested and already belonged to a group in Ann Arbor that did volunteer work. Tim willingly gave his contact information after being informed that it meant that I would be contacting him. I did contact Tim and not long after that we were e-mailing each other daily. I looked forward to each e-mail he sent and each project he would be at. He came out to most of the Jaycee events after the dart tournament and he joined the Ypsilanti Jaycees the night of the St. Patrick's Day Pub Crawl. Tim continued to attend membership projects. We continued to e-mail. It didn't take me long to discover what an intelligent, sweet, sincere, thoughtful, caring, articulate, kind and wonderful man Tim is and I felt special with each e-mail he sent. He joined our softball team and the first time we spent any time together outside of the Jaycees was playing catch. We officially started dating on May 3, 2006. I am truly fortunate that Patrick decided to call Jason that fateful night of March 4th and that I was forced to go out of my comfort zone to try to recruit guests. I recruited a Jaycee and a lifelong partner.

Our Engagement

I'd known for sometime how I was most likely going to propose. I planned on using a geocache, essentially a scavenger hunt utilizing a GPS to find something. Jenny and I went on a geocache on what could arguably be called our first date. I knew I was interested in her then, but wanted to test the waters and make sure she was interested too before trying to advance things further. Apparently somewhere through our first geocache she'd decided it felt more like a date than just hanging out.

While I wanted to do a geocache for the proposal I was also hoping to surprise her. I also considered some alternatives like proposing on the Great Wall of China if our trip had been a bit later than it was. Beginning of November we went to a Jaycee convention in Grand Rapids. I took my GPS along to navigate there and was hoping she'd take note, and suggest we do another geocache sometime. Unfortunately that didn't happen. In the end I asked her if there was a night she'd get out of work at a reasonable time (which isn't too often).

I spent time previous to this preparing the cache, forging entries in the log book of supposed people had visited, trying to disguise my hand-writing (unsuccessfully), taking random pictures with the disposable camera so it had advanced some, and scouting a location in the park that was sufficiently hidden, but also reasonably easy to get to, and find back. I considered whether or not to put the ring in the cache but decided against it. I wrote a quick Perl program to encode some of the clues and instructions contained within the cache.

I put the item in the park the afternoon we were set to go out in the evening, and had to wait for some high school kids to clear out the area before placing the cache.

I then went and picked up Jenny & let her find us the way to the cache. My route in and out earlier in the day was sufficiently more direct. I also had to talk her out of her creating her own trail a few times, and suggest checking if trails existed elsewhere. We eventually made it to the cache location. I had to do a bit of nudging to help her find it. I hid it a little too well to be easily found at night, as it was placed under some leaves. After filling out the logbook, and taking a picture she decoded one clue/question, and then I got down on my then bad knee (from my fall on the Great Wall of China) and asked her to marry me. She said yes. I'm pretty sure the event didn't come as a surprise to her, but the important thing is she said yes.

Jenny's Version

The night of 11/13/07 was a great night. I got out of work at 5:00, and Tim picked me up around 5:30. We went to Lillie Park, a park not far from where I live. The sun had just gone down and the sky was a pretty pink. It was at Lillie Park that Tim took me on my first geocache ever. For those of you who do not know what geocaching is, it is a part of a worldwide game dedicated to GPS (Global Positioning System). The game involves a GPS user hiding "treasure" and publishing the exact coordinates so other GPS users can go on a "treasure hunt" to find the location. One of the first things Tim and I ever did alone together was to go on a geocache at Lillie Park. I consider our first geocache our first date.

We got to the park and Tim said he wanted to try out his GPS as he did not think it was working right and was considering getting a new one. We started a search with the GPS. After going around the pond in the park and up a hill and through some brush we found the cache. It was a nice night and the sliver of a moon reflected in the pond water. The cache contained a disposable camera, a log book, a pencil, a pen, information that it was a geocache site, a sealed envelope and some instructions. The instructions read that it was multi-stage cache a nd to get to the final location you needed to follow the clues contained in the cache. The second and final stage is relatively near by so it shouldn't take much longer to find after following the instructions & decoding the clues.

1. Record your visit in the log book.
2. Take a picture of yourself.
3. Decode the following clue before opening the envelope for your final instructions.

We took a picture and then moved out of the brush to a nearby picnic table to decode the message. Before decoding the message I read the messages "others" had left in the log book. Suspiciously they all looked to be in Tim's handwriting. I then entered a log before decoding. The code was letters that were connected to other letters. In order to read the clue I had to look at the letter that each letter in the message corresponded to. The decoded message read, "If you love someone whose initials are T and V open the envelope for further instructions." Loving a man with those initials I opened the envelope. Inside the envelope the message said "Congratulations! You've made it this far! You've found the initial cache, decoded the message correctly, and responded affirmatively to the question since you're reading this. To reach the final stage of this cache scan the area around you for one additional question which will be presented to you.

Tim then got down on his knee after pulling something out of his backpack. I wish I could remember his words but I can't. He said something to the effect of loving me and wanting to spend the rest of his life with me and he opened the ring box and asked me to marry him. I wish I could remember what he said. I, of course, answered affirmatively. By this time it was totally dark out and I could not see the ring. He put the ring on my finger, and then shined the flashlight on it so I could see what it looked like. I like it.

We then went out to dinner at an Italian restaurant, Paesano's. After eating we went to Tim's. He started a fire in his fire place. Prior to today he had never had a fire in his fireplace as he has needed a chimney sweep . His chimney got swept this morning, and was now safe for a fire. He also had a couple of candles on the coffee table and we had a little wine.

It was a great night and I look forward to spending the rest of my life with T.V. Thanks for reading my story, a story that I am sure will end with a "Happily Ever After".