"Stop Crying Or I'll Give You Somthing to Cry About!" - French Lick, IN
N 38° 33.168 W 086° 37.234
16S E 533061 N 4267220
The engagement story of Team Monkey (thegorilla23 and Ms. Chimp)
Waymark Code: WMGH1K
Location: Indiana, United States
Date Posted: 03/05/2013
Views: 23
After a 3 year dating relationship, Ms. Chimp was growing restless without having a ring on her finger. TheGorilla23 decided it was time to do something about that.
In June 2000, a day long was planned for the special occasion. Since it was a week before our "dating anniversary" and work not allowing for a special day on that date, the "anniversary" was a good cover for what was to come later that evening.
First of all, Ms. Chimp woke up to having a surprise professional massage planned. The massage therapist (her father) was in on it, and following the massage, she was given a homemade word search puzzle that had names of people, places, etc that had been special to us in our 3 years together. Once done with the puzzle, she was told to travel to go to the last place on the list, which was a former place of employment for each of us. There she was given another clue as to where to next, and so on and so on, with about 10 places around Evansville, IN being visited and in on the plan.
After finding the final spot, she was told to go home and freshen up and dress up for a meeting that evening and then told to drive 100+ miles to the meeting location.
The meeting was her "meeting" my deceased grandfather's grave, where I was waiting for her to arrive. She had never had the pleasure to meet this important person in my life, or visit his gravesite, so this was their chance to "meet". I always felt I needed his approval in my choice for a wife, so this was an important meeting to me.
After a nice dinner, we proceeded to go for a walk in French Lick, IN at the French Lick Spring Hotel and Resort. There are/were many nice gardens and walking paths outside the Hotel and it is just an overall beautiful location, even at night.
We found a quiet bench in a nice rose garden and sat to talk for a while. I pulled out a jewelry box from my pocket to give to her for our anniversary, which was NOT the ring. It was a pair of birthstone earrings. She thought they were nice but started to cry. She had her hopes up when she saw the box, and was crushed that she was wrong. BUT ...
As she was crying and looked away to try to stop crying, I slipped off the bench to a knee. I uttered the words, "If you don't stop crying, I'll give you something to cry about!" After a few seconds of disbelief at what I just said, she turned back around, presumably to smack the crap out of me, but saw me on a knee with ANOTHER jewelry box, which was the ring. I think she stopped breathing for about 3 minutes and nearly hyperventilated before FINALLY saying yes.
3 months later, marriage bliss began for Team Monkey!
The location of the proposal has gone through LOTS of change over the years. There are still some gardens around, but not like it was. There is a very cool koi pond in a Japanese garden at the location where the proposal actually took place. We still enjoy visiting the location occasionally, nearly 13 years later!