Team Kutner

Dave is challenging. And that’s meant in the best possible way. He challenges me with his wit, his knowledge, and he pushes me to keep up with his zeal for life and to find the goofiness in every situation. He’s handsome, charming, athletic and hilarious. He shares my love of sports, fitness, puzzles and games, but we have enough differences to make life exciting. Dave will fart to break the tension, make a goofy face when some one is sad, and always has only the snazziest of socks. Dave is my monkey, always curious, always playing (and always in search of a snack).

She is my everything. The perfect compliment to all of my neuroses, my quirks and my habits. She pushes me to better myself, but is always proud of who I am. Taylor and I share so much in terms of interests, tastes and passions, but we have enough contradictory opinions to always fuel our banter and debates. She is so passionate and caring and always trying to do things for other people, even if it puts her in a tough position. While our friends and family are what support us, I know she is always there for me, my biggest cheerleader, my Omi.

We decided to rent bikes and tour Aruba one day on our vacation. The night before we asked the rental shop if they would have bikes in the morning, we put our names down and went back to the hotel for dinner. The next morning we went to the shop and they were out of bikes. I shrugged and said we could do our bike ride the next day because we still had about 5 days left on our trip. Dave however became very agitated. He caused a fuss and the shop owner found us two bikes. Who knew Dave was so passionate about riding? We packed some snacks we snagged at breakfast and off we went, heading towards the lighthouse at the end of the island.

We made it to the lighthouse but Dave suggested we climb up a deserted hill beside it to stop first for a snack. “Classic diabetic!” I thought. “Always needing food”. We walked our bikes up to the top and stopped for a quick bite. I started munching on sweet potato as Dave knelt to his bag digging for sugar I assumed. He quoted my favourite line from Calvin and Hobbes “It’s a magical world out there” and I went to finish it for him, (Hobbes ol’ buddy, lets go exploring) but he was down on one knee continuing “Lets go exploring together as my wife?” Mid chew, I chucked the remaining sweet potato that was in my hand (Who needs forks?) into the grass. Then promptly asked him if he was joking. (What a prankster! I thought). Finally swallowing my snack, I managed to say yes. We sobbed, we kissed and of course took selfies. And that’s how Dave proposed!

There is a PS to this story which is what happened after. After calming down we decided to head to the light house and celebrate with a cocktail overlooking the ocean. After our drink we decided to bike home but in our blissed our state thought “hey! Lets go literally the opposite way we came, directly into the desert!”. “But you’re in a foreign country” you might say, “and your cell phones don’t work.” You’d be correct, but we were THAT blissed out! So cut to 2 hours later, still lost in the desert, coming to terms with the fact at least we’d die together. We finally spotted a car in the distance and followed it back to civilization.

I am so clever! After spending a couple months designing the engagement ring, prepping the payment and hiding it in one of my many hiding spots in the house, we book this amazing trip to Aruba, all inclusive over New Years, what a perfect place to pop the question. After getting up the gall, and lucky to find the time, to get Mr. Birt alone for a moment on Christmas eve, I made sure he was ok with me asking his only daughter for her hand in marriage. I only had one full day to worry about Mr. Birt telling Mrs. Birt and the surprise being taken.

Once in Aruba, I needed to find some alone time. No proposals at the pool or beach. Nothing at a dinner in front of strangers, I needed this to be a Dave and Taylor thing, nobody else. Aruba is a safe place, so we decided to rent bikes one day and bike around the island. I made sure to reserve two bikes the afternoon before, bases = covered. We show up the next day and are told that bikes are not available. So they know how to take the reservation, but they don’t know how to HOLD the reservation (Seinfeld reference). After some haggling and pleading (Taylor didn’t understand why it was so important at the time), two bikes were made available and we were off on our way, ring buried in the bottom of my backpack, along with snacks and beer for the trip.

As we approach my destination (to Taylor, just a landmark along the way) of the Lighthouse, I see numerous tourist buses parked at the top of the incline and think to myself “I do not want to do this in front of a bunch of ravenous tourists!”. So thinking quickly, I suggest to Tay to pull off to the side of our trail, park our bikes and fuel up for the remaining push. We set the bikes down, short climb to a small rocky spot overlooking the Caribbean Sea and I hand her some leftover sweet potato from breakfast, you know, to distract her. As I pretend to rummage around in my bag for my snack and drink, I start on the quote, her favourite quote from her favourite cartoon strip, Calvin and Hobbes. The quote featured in the last comic ever produced: “It’s a magical world out there, Hun. Would you explore it with me as my wife?”

She must have had some sweet potato still in her hand and mouth, because I saw her throw something away, turn to me, swallow and ask if I was kidding, if I was being serious. She saw that I was on my knee, that I had found the hidden ring and had propped it open in the box. All I could do was nod, smile and fight back tears of joy to show her that I wasn’t kidding around (for once in my life). She squealed, threw her arms around me and suddenly, we were engaged!